Practices

Using consensus, Spare Key developed the following vision statement to guide our practices as a community:

Spare Key is a neighborhood of adventurers committed to fostering practical expresses ions of the spiritual, personal, and communal goals if its members through the act of sharing in hopes of leaving the world a better place than we found it. 

To enact this vision, we practice several rhythms together that form the foundation for intentional living.

Weekly Gathering

Once a week we gather together at one of the member's homes to practice community, sharing, and active communication. The host home rotates each week between the current 3 households represented by full members. Each home has a designated name: The Bell Tower, The House Providence, and The Parlor. 

Through weekly potluck dinner and check-in’s, we learn to support and encourage one-another as we share our homes, our food, and our journey. Through weekly reading, prayer, and discussion, we learn to be open-minded and humble as we practice active listening, affirmation, and respect.

Common Prayer

As part of our weekly meetings, we do Common Prayer together. Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals was compiled and written by Shane Claiborne, Jonathan Wilson Hartgrove, and Enuma Okoro. It incorporates readings from the Old and New Testaments, responsive readings, hymns, and prayer to create a liturgical rhythm for our group.

Community Supported Agriculture

This summer marks the second season that Spare Key has participated in a community supported agriculture share (CSA) at a nearby urban farm called Urban Roots. The community splits a full share throughout the summer season. Basically what that looks like is we visit the farm once a week and pick up a large share of a variety of veggies including interesting stuff like kohlrabi, purslane, and nasturtiums! It's like food Christmas every week!

Gardening Adventures!

Part of our vision is to support one another's goals through sharing. Several Spare Key members enjoy gardening, so we like to help each other out with our garden endeavors. The House Providence has tilled up almost their entire front yard and replaced the grass with far more productive crops such as herbs, kale, corn, and peppers. The Parlor is currently housed in an apartment, so they rent an urban garden plot at Rutledge Wilson Farm where they grow peppers, onions, leeks, and melons.

Retreats

Full members of Spare Key have the opportunity to participate in retreats a couple times a year. Each of these retreats are planned using consensus based on what the group's needs and hopes are for that season. We have taken a variety of retreats including one on Arkansas in which we practiced silence for a full 24 hour period. We have also taken more local retreats to family member's homes nearby and we have even spent a weekend at the Watershed Center dreaming and planning out community (and creating this blog!) We try to take retreats twice a year the help refocus us spiritually, personally, and as a community.

General Activeness and Fitness

All of us have personal fitness goals and enjoy supporting each other in those goals. This takes a variety of forms from memberships at the YMCA, SPARK Fitness, long bike rides, yoga, hiking, and just generally being active together. This leads to our next practice that is really at the core of what community is all about...

Intentionality

Part of being a community, or a "neighborhood of adventurers" as our vision statement says, is being intentional with one another. Using Facebook, phone calls, emails, and tin can phones, we keep each other updated on what we are doing and often join each other for random activities. Why go grocery shopping alone when you can go with a friend? Some of the random awesome activities that have come out of or intentional living is all day Nintendo tournaments, seeing lots of live music together, countless grocery trips, visits to the Farmer's Market, meals together, and numerous other activities that are just better when they are shared with others.