Part 2

 

Creation of Agape Restoration Communities

 

Enroll physically healthy Christians of good will

The first step is for local Christians to prepare themselves by studying our 1-year "Social Ministry of the Church" six-course program, then begin caring for disabled people. When a team of two or three local Christians is trained, begins helping four or six disabled people and may have found local sponsors for some of them, ARS will accept an application to form a new local branch of ARS. These coworkers will be led by the deacons and/or deaconesses in their local church. Only when they have gathered enough people desiring to live in their own center should they register a separate non-profit organization. Registering too early will take much time and resources that could be better invested in ministry.

Participation in a local branch of the ARS is open to all who agree to the following conditions, it is not limited only to people with disabilities, their families or workers in a center. We welcome participation of all Christians of good will who confess the Nicene Creed. It is very important that physically healthy people live alongside disabled and elderly people so they are not isolated from society, put in a home for elderly or disabled people. Also, in order to avoid a ghetto mentality, sufficiently rehabilitated residents may be encouraged to move out of the ARC into accessible housing if they wish, to make room for others who need the loving attention of a Christian community.

Emphasis on faith practiced in daily life

The next step in creating a local branch of ARS is to begin to care for the disabled in practical ways. To begin, local ARS workers visit disabled persons to find out what their specific problems are, offer to bring them to church (you might need a portable wheelchair that you can put in the back of your car), and then develop a plan to help solve their problems. This will usually include spiritual counseling, physical rehabilitation and/or vocational retraining. Then we will share with them the goals, principles and practices of the ARS. In other words, we must first organize people who share common problems and interests. We will also cooperate with public agencies for the handicapped that permit us to hold our goals, principles and practices. Militant secularism often attempts to silence or co-opt a Christian worldview, but we must not allow this to occur. We do what we do in the name of Jesus Christ.

To be a participant in the ARS or to live in a center requires that one personally confess the Nicene Creed, be baptized and an active member in a church that confesses the Nicene Creed (attend worship service at least two times per month, or for disabled people when possible), sincerely and consistently strive to live according to the Gospel, and not take part in drunkenness, gluttony, sexual immorality, stealing, extortion, slander, idolatry, astrology, magic or other non-Christian religious activities. We also observe the "three person" rule: if an adult man and woman (not married to each other) are behind closed doors, there must be at least one other adult present. This is to avoid the temptation to or even the impression of adultery or fornication.

This requirement of belief and conduct is both Scriptural (1 Cor. 5:11; 6:9-11; Gal. 5:19-21), and needed to ensure some degree of cohesion and harmony in each center and in the ARS. And this is because with the rise of seularism many have been baptized but not truly Christianized, only because it was culturally acceptable to be baptized. Also, neo-paganism is rampant in many parts of the world, with many being dual-believers - in Christ and in pagan gods or ideologies. But for a disabled person to visit the center and/or to receive assistance from ARS would not require any particular religious affiliation (Gal. 6:10). The leaders of each local branch, i.e. an ARC (Agape Restoration Community), must be Christians and active members of their church for at least three years, have good organizational skills and a good reputation in their city for their integrity in morals and in business, and for their sincere concern for the poor and disabled (Lev. 19:9-18).

Members of the governing board of an ARC (Agape Restoration Community) will receive no financial or other compensation from their position. A local church can recruit its members to serve disabled persons through their ARC in its city or town, to demonstrate the love of Christ in practical ways. Circles of disabled people, their families and friends become natural places for churches to start home Bible study groups. ARC workers will not pressure people in these groups to move from one Christian confession to another. A new branch of ARS can be opened for people of another Christian confession.

Shares in the local ARC entitling the share owner to perpetual use of one living unit will be sold to people who have been active members of their local church for a two-year period and who have the proven ability to pay for their living unit on no more than a six-year loan (Deut. 15:1-2): either elderly people, or families with disabled people, families with adopted or foster children, or volunteer workers in the center. When residents die, if the heirs of those residents don't meet these conditions, they must sell their deceased relatives' shares to people who agree to the conditions. Shares of the living units thus will always belong to members of the local ARC, they will not be automatically inheritable property. This preserves the Christian character of each ARC over the long term. Otherwise within a generation or two, an ARC could be inhabited by a majority of non-Christian descendants of the original residents, and the center would no longer fulfill its purpose of being a Christian community.

All adult participants of sound mind will agree in a written covenant to confess the Nicene Creed, strive to live according to the Gospel, refrain from non-Christian activities listed above, and be active church members. Problems with non-Christian belief or behavior will be handled always in the presence of the accused, first face-to-face (Lev. 19:16-17), then if not resolved, with two or three leaders, then before a meeting of the local church (Mat. 18:11-20), with the goal of restoring, not merely disciplining. If these problems should continue after these three steps, participants will be suspended, and those who reside in an ARC must vacate their living unit and the ARC will reimburse them for their shares. Also, if a disabled or elderly person dies, a family member must either become a volunteer worker (at least 3-4 hours/week) in the center, or the heirs must sell the shares for their living unit at market value through the ARC to other qualified prospective residents.
 

 

BUILDING THE ARC: Personal empowerment via accountability and work

(Click Here to see our 10 sketches in full-screen mode.)

ARC#2 IsometricFrom the outset it is important to stress the need for local self-sufficiency in an Agape Restoration Community, i.e., an Intentional Community where the able-bodied and the disabled both lead the Christian life of of worship, service, sharing, moderation, and spiritual discipline. What is an “Intentional Community”? There are 1000’s of types – Christian, ecologically friendly, secular communes, etc. – see the Foundation for Intentional Community at www.ic.org. Although it is not necessarily harmful to help support poor and disabled people (2 Cor. 8:13-15), it must be done in a way that does not create dependency. Therefore we emphasize that local churches should be primarily responsible for their local branch of Agape Restoration Society. One of ARS's goals is to help local churches find a way to have their own meeting place in a co-operative living center. In each Agape Restoration Community the church will own shares for the community room/chapel and restrooms, and the residents will own shares for their homes in our simplified plan, 6 wheelchair-accessible living units on the first floor, on the second floor the community room/chapel (just under 750 ft.2), restrooms, and 4 wheelchair-accessible living units or offices, and 2 living units plus storage rooms on the third floor.

Each center will be organized as an autonomous branch of the ARS, associated with a local church, and will be responsible for its own local fund-raising and repaying loans from various sources. Local funds will be kept in local bank accounts until expended. Close supervision of and accounting for disbursing funds will insure that they are used strictly as designated and disbursed only when services have been performed. Each local branch of the ARS will be encouraged to train and send workers to help start new branches, and as its loans are paid off, to loan money interest-free to these new branches. Here's how you can donate for this project - OR - join our mail list. Thanks!

Secularism has led to the de-Christianizing of the world. Former church buildings in the U.S. have been turned into taverns or private residences. In its extreme form of communism, about 250,000 church buildings in Russia were destroyed or confiscated and turned into breweries, warehouses, or "Lenin Houses of Culture." Secularization world-wide has diminished the role of the church in society and has led most people to lean on the state for answers to all their problems, leaving many churches shrinking or abandoned. Poor and disabled Christians must free themselves from the idea that "they" – meaning someone else: the state or other Christians – ought to pay to restore or build new churches. Secular governments have neither the wealth nor the will to pay for this, and there is not enough money in all the churches and other Christian organizations in the whole world to build the needed number of ordinary church buildings so that our countries can again be called "Christian nations."

But almost all Christians, including poor and disabled people, have a place to live. By exchanging their current home for a living unit in an ARC, they are providing a building where a church can gather to worship and fulfill its God-ordained ministry to "the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind." Christians already have the wealth needed to carry out the task of re-Christianizing their countries, in the form of their current homes. We need to restore the spirit of agape-love and mutual self-help community, then simply train and organize ourselves to do it.

A pastor or deacon of the associated church will serve as director of the local ARC branch. The director of ARS or director of a local branch (or a relative) must not control the finances: a completely separate person must manage the finances of each local ARC, separate from the church's finances. When a sufficient number of people have subscribed for shares, the local branch can take out a construction loan to build a new Agape Restoration Community. When a family sells its old house or apartment, the money from the sale of the old residence will be used to pay for its shares in the new ARC. Thus it is self-financing.

The ARC and its associated church will be two separate legal entities. Other people can be members of this church and not of the ARC "housing cooperative." The church associated with each ARC, represented by its clergy, is also a member of the ARC. Residents will be members of this cooperative that requires all adult residents of sound mind to be members of the church and affirm its doctrines and practices. This guarantees the building's perpetual Christian character by avoiding the problem of unbelievers in the second generation inheriting the units. A company that has built over 25 housing cooperatives in the Midwest U.S. for disabled persons and seniors, Realife, Inc., takes a similar approach. Here is what their old website stated –

What is a Housing Cooperative?
* Housing cooperatives are a form of multifamily homeownership. Shareholders or tenants join together to form a not-for-profit cooperative corporation which owns the building in which they live.
* Residents buy a share (membership) in the co-op, but the cooperative owns the building, land, and any common areas. Residents are entitled to live in a housing unit as part of their membership benefits.
* Members pay a fixed amount each month that covers basic expenses, including mortgage, property taxes, and maintenance. As share owners, members exercise control over their housing situation by electing a board of directors made up of other residents.
* This varies from a condominium or town home, where residents each own their individual housing units and are responsible for their own mortgage.

What are the Advantages?
Ownership: Members actually own the cooperative through their share ownership of the not-for-profit cooperative corporation; there is no equity investor or landlord.
Control: Residents govern the cooperative with assistance from the managing agent.
Cost of Operation: Occupancy charges are equal to only the actual cost of owning and operating the property. In a rental, rent generally goes up faster than actual costs because most landlords are in business to make a profit.
Individuality: Initial members are able to customize their dwelling units, including a choice of floor coverings, cabinet colors, and various structural changes.
Homeowner Tax Advantages: Mortgage interest and real estate taxes are tax deductible in a housing cooperative.
Equity Growth Potential: In a Realife Cooperative, members earn limited equity on their unit based on the amount of time they live in their home. The earning of limited equity keeps it affordable for the first members and future members.
Overall Value: Expenses in a cooperative are spread across the entire membership proportionately, making the cost of living generally lower than a comparable single-family home.

Three Steps to Your Cooperative Home
1. Reservation: By making a $500 refundable deposit, you are assigned a reservation number. This determines the order we follow with home selection.
2. Subscription: This is the home selection process. It involves unit selection (including type and location in the building) as well as a review of the costs associated with membership in the cooperative (share price and monthly fee). There is a $4500 down payment required to select the size of your living unit.
3. Share Collection: We collect the shares prior to construction. This is similar to a down payment on a single family home. We are required to collect the shares before we begin construction in return for the FHA insurance on the mortgage. There is only one mortgage on the property and it is held by the cooperative.

(The above dollar amounts are adjusted from the Realife website in the early 2000s to reflect that the dollar is worth less than half as much as then.) Thus we have the four stages needed to start such a housing cooperative:
First, train a diakonia-ministry team to visit and care for local disabled people in their homes.
Second, invite their relatives and friends to come to the home of these disabled people to listen to what the Bible says about caring for the poor, lame, maimed and blind: they already know what you're doing, you just need to identify why you're doing it and many will believe!
Third, when you have three or four of these home groups going (it may take several months to get to know and trust each other, so be patient!), only then introduce to them the idea of a housing cooperative. If you dump this idea on them before you've won their trust you could alienate them, and you need to be able to trust their sincerity as well.
Fourth, when enough people are interested you will incorporate a non-profit housing cooperative, locate a piece of land and follow the three steps above: reservation, subscription and share collection. As you can see, this differs little from conventional church-planting, but it has the added plus of real, hands-on ministry integrated into it right from the start.

The cooperative will consist of about 1/3 of living units for physically healthy families with an adopted or foster child to live in the center, along with about 1/3 of living units for elderly and disabled people and about 1/3 of living units for missionaries and trained volunteer workers, including college students. The larger church body should include mainly people who are capable of ministering, not just those who need to be ministered to. Having physically healthy younger families in the center also greatly helps the rehabilitation of disabled and elderly people and their socialization, because they want and need to be part of the larger, "normal" society.

Participants, both residents and non-residents, will be encouraged to help finish their own living unit and others', and to contribute for common areas. Donors will be able to designate their gifts to go for a specific family or center, and will be kept informed about that family or center. Separately-designated donations will also be raised to provide equipment and medicines for the disabled, as well as to train volunteer workers in a center. Feedback to these donors from each family and center increases their accountability.

Major financial supporters are encouraged to donate or loan money to the building fund so that construction may begin. Shareholders will be responsible for repaying any loans for their living unit, their proportional amount of the center's common facilities, and maintenance fees. Each ARC is locally-owned from the outset. The donors are just donating monthly support which is distributed among local ARS branches, and if a local or the national situation goes bad, they simply stop supporting. This approach reduces the "what if" concerns of donors: "What if some dishonorable person takes over a center?" or "What if a socialist government emerges and nationalizes all property?"

Description of buildings

In the plans shown below, you can see how the first and second floors of the center are connected by wheelchair-accessible ramps. The slope of the ramps is very important: the size and shape of the whole building is determined by the slope of the ramps. The slope must be 1:12 (A.D.A. requirement), gentle enough to allow disabled persons with the use of their arms to ascend or descend the ramps by themselves, and there will be special sidewalks outside as well. The community room/chapel on the second floor can be used for physical exercise, shared meals, and other activities. Our earlier ARC #1 drawings showed from 28 to 42 living units, but that would have been quite a large up-front cost, so we developed plans for an ARC #2 building about 1/4 of that size with 12-18 living units.

The ARC is kept relatively small to maintain a feeling of "family," a sense of community. The huge apartment complexes in both East and West deprive people of rootedness and the sense of belonging to an "extended family" of like-minded people, and have a harmful effect on family cohesion and the raising of children. Each living unit will have a high-speed connection to the Internet. A larger living unit can be used for a family with many children, or a family that accepts and cares for other handicapped people, or a dormitory for volunteers and students. They can be built in various places in a city, to integrate disabled people into the larger society, rather than isolate them in one part of the city or outside of it. An ARC #2 can be built on 1/2 acre (30m x 50m) with 12 living units and a community room/chapel with balconies totaling about 1,600 sq. ft. for community functions (shared meals, parties, exercise etc.) and worship.

Just in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where we now live, or in Ioshkar-Ola, capital of the Mari Republic in Russia, the city in which we lived, could use ten or more of such centers in various places around town. There are thousands of physically disabled people in these cities, many living in housing not built for disabled people. In the U.S. and Russia, both with growing numbers of elderly people, there is a need for hundreds or even thousands of these centers. The disabled people from U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or from Russia's wars in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Ukraine, number in the tens of thousands. This doesn't include people who are disabled from birth, illness or accident. In the U.S. and Russia there are also millions of orphans who need adoption or foster care. These people are among the neediest, because it is difficult for them to receive training adapted to their needs and find well-paying jobs.

Due to changing costs for construction in each locality, even a rough cost estimate of each center is not possible here. But keep in mind that if construction costs change, so does the value of the local homes that future residents will sell to take a living unit in an Agape Restoration Community. The majority of the cost for the entire building will be paid for by the living unit residents and participants in each local branch of ARS. We will need to have these sketches re-drawn by a local architect to meet local building codes. You can see and print out this article including these plans at our Web site https://agape-biblia.org/literatura/ARC-Article-Eng.pdf.
 


 

Conclusion

"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.' Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'"

- Matthew 25: 31-40



The ARC #1: (To view these as larger sketches or print them, click on each sketch.)

Isometric (three-dimensional) view: Because the building is wheelchair-accessible there are no steps leading into it, therefore the plot must be landscaped so that water flows away from the building. But most importantly, the design expresses the purpose of the ministry driven church where every member is a minister. It lets the church focus on ministering to people, not on struggling to build and maintain a budget-breaking building. Isometric

 
 
The ARC #2:

Isometric-ARC#2 Isometric (three-dimensional) view of ARC #2: The ARC-2 is about 1/4 the size of the ARC-1 and is built on 1/2 acre with 12 living units and a community room/chapel and ramps for the building to be wheelchair-accessible. The ramp entrance at street level is just over 1/2-floor (5.5 ft.) higher than 1st floor level and can either be an open sidewalk or optionally covered. Parking is at the side and rear. The design expresses the purpose of the Ministry Driven Church where every member is a minister, letting the church focus on ministering to people, not on struggling to build and maintain a budget-breaking building.
Stairs details for ARC #2:. The stairs and landing must be 16 ft. long in order to fit within the 2nd set of support beams. The "nose" of each stair tread can overlap the riser by 1" which decreases the length of the staircase by 14", allowing the staircase to end at the support post, and provides more headroom at the bottom of the stairs. The ramp going from elevated ground level to the second floor 25' x 25' community room/chapel and four to six living units, then stairs going up to the balcony on the 3rd floor, with an optional stair lift, and four living units. Stairs details for ARC #2
Floorplan for ARC #2 First Floor Floorplan for ARC #2 "Lower Deck" (First Floor): . This floorplan shows two 2-bedroom units and two 3-bedroom units on the 1st floor.. This floorplan could also be used for the 2nd floor, creating a building with a total of eight wheelchair-accessible 2-bedroom units or fourteen 1-bedroom units and four more stairway-accessible 1-bedroom units in the loft for home healthcare workers and others, if zoning permits it. Why have ramps instead of an elevator? Ramps embody the goal of agape-restoration: help people restore their strength by staying active.
Floorplan for ARC #2 "Main Deck" (Second Floor):. There's a 25' x 25' community room/chapel, two 2-bedroom living units (that could be divided into four 1-bedroom units), and two 1-bedroom living units on the 2nd floor. Stairs (with an optional stair lift) lead up to the 3rd floor. Floorplan for ARC #2 Second Floor
Floorplan for ARC #2 Third Floor Floorplan for ARC #2 "Upper Deck" (Third Floor):. This floorplan is for the third floor. This shows four 1-bedroom living units on the 2nd floor and the balconies around the community room/chapel. These living units can be used for home health workers or to add 2 more bedrooms via stairs connecting to a 2-bedroom living unit on the second floor.
Int'l. Building Code for ARC #2 "Upper Deck" (Third Floor):. The International Building Code permits having an "accessory assembly area" of no more than 750 sq. ft. This allows us to satisfy any zoning codes requiring multi-family residences to be strictly residential, not including a "chapel" or "church." Int'l. Building Code for ARC #2 Third Floor Alternate
Robert & Cheryl Here's some info about Robert and Cheryl Hosken, the man who keeps Agape Restoration Society going and the woman who keeps this man going.


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Part 1