About
What is the Purpose of the Church?
To show Christ to the world.
How can we accomplish this?
Through the radical and countercultural witness of local groups of Disciples.
Today, building Christian communities and evangelizing outreach to the world are sometimes seen as opposed; in reality, Christian community should be the means by which we evangelize, or it is meaningless. We are called to let our light shine forth. If we look like everyone else, or if we withdraw into enclaves of the like-minded, the result is the same in both cases; a bushel basket over our lamp. If we try to live the Gospel message radically, but as individuals instead of groups, we will be unable to show the Mystical Body to the world in an effective way.
This website seeks to host a conversation about what a radically Christian life looks like in the modern world, and to inspire and facilitate the formation of local communities that embody such a way of life.
The word “community” can mean anything from a vowed group living together and sharing everything in common to an informal group of families that meets regularly for prayer and fellowship, and everything in between. This website discusses a range of community models.
The core members of the Happy Are You Poor team are Catholic, and we strive to remain loyal to all that the Church teaches. As Catholics, we believe in the importance of ecumenical outreach and friendship, and so we welcome all Christians to join our discussions. We pray for the removal of the divisions in the body of Christ, and the arrival of the unity for which he prayed.