People exiting chronic homelessness have moved into Sacred Settlements to find healing, safety, and belonging. Soon, more people will find community at more churches across America. 

Churches – and their networks of people – are sharing their time, building spaces, property grounds, and their social connections.This is part of our Full Community model helping churches across the nation to address chronic homelessness. Driving our model is a shared mindset, shared characteristics, and a shared heartbeat. We call it a Shared Way of Life.In the coming months, we will dive into each of the eight practices our team at Settled has developed with thoughtful consideration, in tandem with church leaders, and with experience living in intentional communities. These practices within our Shared Way of Life underscore and empower the Full Community model to be carried out in our everyday lives, regardless of whether or not you are a member at a church that has planted a Sacred Settlement.

Would you be willing to carefully read through this list and meditate on these themes in your own life?


With our time, skills, resources, creativity, and influence:


We practice rest to restore communion with God, in a world of anxiety, busyness, and hurry.

We practice authenticity to restore truth, in a world that often presents cheap, fake, and superficial options.

We practice homemaking to restore home, in a world where waste, convenience, and consumerism are the norm.

We practice sharing to restore gratitude, in a world of scarcity, strings attached, and greed.

We practice hospitality to restore belonging, in a world where otherness, hatred, and isolation are rampant.

We practice devotion to restore love, in a world where individualism, selfishness and self-preservation are prevalent.

We practice peacemaking to restore unity, in a world of offense, unforgiveness, and conflict.

We practice surrender to restore faith, in a world of fear, self-reliance, and control.

These practices are important, in part, to help shape who we are at Settled and what people live out in Sacred Settlements.

The prophet Jeremiah painted a beautiful picture in antiquity of what we long for:  

“We stand at the crossroads and look, we ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, so we may walk in it and find rest for our souls.”

Jesus’ invitation into a life with him underscores the necessity of practices that turn into habits, which bear fruit in personal and communal characteristics:  

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

We invite you to join us in learning more about a Shared Way of Life. Explore these practices in your own context, share them with others in your proximity, and join us at any one of our upcoming events to learn more.

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