FAQ

About 190 families, totaling nearly a thousand people, comprise the Homestead Heritage Community in Texas. About one fourth of them live on the Brazos de Dios community property, and the remainder live on their own personal properties in the surrounding area.

Our community land totals 510 acres and has several different functions. Approximately 25 acres are used for the Homestead Craft Village. There are about 175 acres of land below the bluffs and on the banks of the Brazos River. Of this portion, approximately 38 acres are cultivated using traditional horse-farming methods to provide various community crops. There is also a hayfield of nearly 20 acres, and approximately 100 acres of pasture. The remainder of land is used for individual family homesteads or is undeveloped forest areas. The Brazos River, which forms our western border, was historically called “Brazos de Dios” (Arms of God) by early Spanish settlers, and we’ve continued to use the name in reference to our farm.

As far as community crops, we typically grow several different varieties of wheat, Hickory King corn, sweet potatoes, and sorghum cane. We also harvest pecans from several groves of trees on the land. In addition, individual families grow a tremendous assortment of produce throughout the year to supply their own needs, with surplus produce available at the Homestead Market.

Belgian and Percheron draft horse teams and mules.

Besides the community in Texas, our affiliated communities elsewhere include fellowships in Idaho, Montana, Virginia, Mexico, New Zealand and South Africa.

Our community began in June of 1973 in the lower East side of Manhattan, New York, when a small group of people began meeting at an inner-city mission called “Voice in the Wilderness.” To learn more of how our community has grown into what it is today, see Our History. We also have several other resources available, including the book Portrait of a Community as well as a documentary film An Exodus, that discuss the development of our community in more detail.

The Homestead Craft Village is open Monday-Saturday from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas Day. For detailed information and a complete list of shops and activities, please visit www.HomesteadCraftVillage.com

We are a community, not a commune. As such, we do not have a common purse—each individual and family is responsible for their own financial wellbeing. We also believe in the integrity of the family. So each family manages their own homestead, either on privately owned land or on a rented portion of our community property. We do feel, however, the ethical responsibility to “love our neighbors as ourselves,” and we are mutually committed to seeking the common good by voluntarily sharing with any among us who are in need of practical, financial or spiritual help.

(For more information about this topic, see Why We Live in Community: Intentional Community and the Survival of the Church, by Blair Adams.)

We farm primarily with horses because we’ve found this to be the most fruitful, sustainable and healthy method for cultivating not only our crops and our soil, but also our families, our values, our community relationships and our connection to God and His creation. At the same time, we recognize the fact that we live in and need to relate to a modern world that differs radically from the traditional ways of agrarian life. In finding the balance, a principle guides us: we want to participate as directly as possible in those things related to the essentials of life, while not removing ourselves so far from the realities of the culture around us as to incapacitate our ability to share with others the good life we’ve found. In keeping with this approach, we also avoid using technology to merely entertain ourselves, since we’ve seen that this often serves, at best, as a distraction from meaningful tasks and relationships.

(For more information about this topic, see Why We Live in Community: Intentional Community and the Survival of the Church and Culture, Agriculture and the Land, both by Blair Adams, as well as Changing Our Minds: The Impact of Technology by S. Kay Toombs.)

We do not have a specific “dress code” or “uniform.” But our members do seek to share a common outward identity that expresses the inward values intrinsic to our shared Christian faith. These values include simplicity, modesty and a desire to be free from the pulls of fashion and competition prevailing in consumerist cultures. We recognize that other believers may have a different understanding of these matters, and we don’t pass judgment on those who dress differently from us.

(For more information about this topic, see Tolerance, Externalism and Holiness: Do Modesty and Gender-Specific Dress Represent the Simplicity of Holiness or Legalistic Intolerance?, by Blair Adams.)

We believe all people are of equal value in the sight of God and should be respected as such, regardless of gender, age, race, nationality, religion, economic status, political affiliation or any other distinguishing characteristic. We also recognize, however, that equality does not mean sameness, and so we acknowledge that some distinct and complementary functions are intrinsic to gender. We honor, respect and value the roles of both genders (as well as the unique contributions of many other distinguishing roles, such as those of children or the elderly), recognizing that diversity and complementarity are essential for the cooperative culture of family and community to flourish.

(For more information about this topic, see What Kind of Family?: Innovative Myths, Traditional Religion and the Art of Human Relationships, by Blair Adams.)

We are a voluntary community, so our children are free to do anything they wish once they come of age. We do believe in continuing higher education, but we’ve found that our children and our way of life are best served by pursuing higher education within the context of our community rather than in a traditional institutional setting. In fact, in many ways our community is a college—opportunities abound for apprenticeship and technical and vocational training of all kinds. We also have an ongoing teaching ministry for adults that covers a broad range of cultural, biblical and historical topics.

A substantial percentage of our members are, in fact, college graduates, including several with doctorates in education, philosophy, medicine and other fields. Nonetheless, these also concur with our experience over the last four decades: practical experience and relational knowledge gained in the context of personal relationships are far more likely to produce a meaningful, well-rounded, productive life than is an abstract, impersonal pursuit of a specialized certification. If our children do, nonetheless, choose to attend college, their primary education here will have equipped them to do so.

(For more information about this topic, see Saving Marriage, Family and Community: A Crisis between Two Types of Authority, Education Exodus, Volume One: Leaving Behind the Coercion of the Mind and Wisdom’s Children, Book One: Home Education and the Creation of Communities That Sustain Life, all by Blair Adams.)

No. This is a false impression spawned by a few media stories shown to be spurious. In keeping with the words of Jesus, that “the well have no need of a physician,” our community has always reached out to all types of people, including some from very troubled and even criminal backgrounds. We’ve seen hundreds of amazing, radical transformations as we seek to bring hope and purpose to broken lives and struggling families. Unfortunately, in attempting to fulfill this mission over the past 40 years, we have encountered a few cases of child abuse among those we’ve tried to help, and we have always cooperated fully with law enforcement to rectify the situation.

(For more information about this topic, click here.)

There is much controversy, of course, about what exactly constitutes “orthodox Christian doctrine,” but we do base all our teachings and beliefs directly on the Bible. In fact, in many ways, our beliefs and practices are probably more traditional than much of what has come to be called “Christianity” today. We do not, however, emphasize post-Biblical historic Christian traditions and creeds, many of which we believe became convoluted and distorted from the original Biblical model seen in the first church. We emphasize instead that salvation is not found in abstract doctrines and creeds, but in a living relationship with Jesus. With that said, we nonetheless agree with many orthodox Christian beliefs—for example, we would endorse all the truths contained in the Methodist Apostles’ Creed.

(For brief summaries of the tenets of our Christian faith, click here, or for more information about this topic, see What We Believe: A Synopsis of the Vision, Spiritual Roots and Cultural Position of Heritage Ministries, by Blair Adams.)

The answer to this question depends a great deal on how you define the words “grace,” “faith” and “works.” In brief, we can say here that we believe, along with Paul, that it is “by grace [we] have been saved through faith,” and that salvation is “not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph. 2:8-9). Yet we also believe, along with James, that “a man is justified by works and not by faith alone” (James 2:24). We see this seeming contradiction as resolved by recognizing that the Bible speaks of two types of works: works of the flesh that “profit nothing,” and works of the Spirit done in obedience to Christ, which are the necessary fruit of genuine saving faith (as verse 10 of the above passage from Ephesians 2 immediately proceeds to describe).

(For more information about this topic, see Six Provocative Messages on Salvation and the Kingdom, by Blair Adams.

We believe that the one God of the Old and New Testaments has manifested Himself as the Father in creation, the Son in redemption and the Holy Spirit in regeneration. We believe that Jesus Christ was both fully man and fully God. We don’t commonly choose the word “trinity” to describe the nature of God, since there has historically been so much confusion swirling around the meaning of this term (and the word is actually not even found in the Bible). Nonetheless, we do acknowledge an economic trinity within the godhead (a trinity of expressions, yet one deity) as opposed to an ontological trinity (a trinity of intrinsically distinct “persons”).

(For more information about this topic, see The Messianic Incarnation, Ancient Judaism and the Oneness of God, by Blair Adams.)

Our community has a plural leadership structure. Our founding minister is Blair Adams, who together with his wife, Regina, first ventured to the slums of New York City in 1973 with little else but a heart to help hurting people and a message of hope for redemption and radical transformation through Jesus Christ. Very early in our history, however, Blair insisted that our church community adopt the New Testament model of plural leadership rather than the more prevalent “one pastor” model. The cooperation and accountability inherent in this plural ministry, with dozens of ministers meeting the needs of the congregation and each other in various ways, has stood our community in good stead for many decades.

(For more information about our community’s history, click here or see Portrait of a Community: The History and Roots of Homestead Heritage.)

Decision-making processes in our community vary according to the situation, but they’re always handled cooperatively and relationally. We have several boards of people who oversee various aspects of community life—for example, agricultural decisions, construction project management, administration of our Ploughshare School of Sustainability, coordination of events such as our annual fair, maintenance and operation of our craft village and so on. For major decisions affecting the whole community, all members are given opportunity for input.

(For more information about this topic, see Why We Live in Community: Intentional Community and the Survival of the Church, by Blair Adams.)

We place great importance on maintaining our unity and peace with one another. Members of our community share a common commitment to resolve any conflicts or problems swiftly by first, in a spirit of humility, bringing the problem directly to each other, and then appealing to a third party for help if necessary. In rare and extreme cases, if a member consistently refuses to live according to our agreed-upon standards for moral behavior and Christian living, their membership would have to be revoked. All of this is done according to the specific instruction of Jesus in Matthew 18:15-17, with the goal always being reconciliation.

(For more information about this topic, see Why We Live in Community: Intentional Community and the Survival of the Church, by Blair Adams.)

We have multiple services throughout the week at various locations, serving many different functions. Visitors are welcome at many of these meetings. Since most of our meetings are held in homes, times and location can vary considerably. Please ask one of our members for details if you’re interested in attending.

Anyone can join our community, provided they fully understand our beliefs and our way of life and are fully committed to living them out. We encourage anyone who’s interested to come spend time with us, ask questions and get to know us. We also have an abundance of literature available for those who want to learn about us in greater depth. (Click here to visit our online bookstore.)