Life in the Brothers/Sisters houses

[Freedom]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

How about a thread "Life in the brothers and sisters houses"? I have some experiences that I'd like to chat about and I'd like to know if they were unique or the same as others. I'd really like to know other's experiences.

I can say a little about my experience in a brothers house. Since I am a “church kid”, I had the view that living in a brothers house was the premier path for church kid who had his eyes set on the FTTA (thank God I never went on to attend the FTTA). That was my main reason for choosing to live in such an environment. I also made the assumption that it would somehow help me in my spiritual growth.

One of the first things that I realized while living in a brothers house was that not everyone was there because they wanted to be. Some were simply church kids with high-pressure parents. I saw that as a major problem, since there were also people like me who had chosen to live in such an environment, by their own will, and even making financial self-sacrifice to live in such an environment.

Initially, I bought into the strict rules, feeling that it was necessary for “transformation. We had the rules that might be expected. No watching TV and movies, no listening to music, no video games, no girlfriends, no smoking, no drinking, etc. I can say that I saw most if not all of those rules broken, particularly with movies and video games. So at some point, I realized that with the rules that everyone was supposed to be following, there was a large amount of pretense taking place. Of course, some of those kinds of rules are completely unnecessary, however, it really got to me after a while that no one seemed to care about following the rules. It defeated the whole purpose of living there in my mind.

On the positive side, I bonded with some who I lived with and have enjoyed friendships with them long afterwards. I have plenty of good memories. Camping, hiking, “blending” with other campuses. You name it. Overall, it was those kinds of experiences that kept me going in that environment. There were many things that frustrated me which I had to ignore.

In retrospect, I would not have chosen to live in a brothers house knowing what I know now. I don’t think the strict environment is necessary or helpful. More often than not, I saw it make hypocrites out of those living in that environment, and that was certainly the case with me as well.