Building Community
22 But if [the Gentiles] will repent and hearken unto my words, and harden not their hearts, I will establish my church among them, and they shall come in unto the covenant and be numbered among this the remnant of Jacob, unto whom I have given this land for their inheritance;
23 And they shall assist my people, the remnant of Jacob, and also as many of the house of Israel as shall come, that they may build a city, which shall be called the New Jerusalem.
24 And then shall they assist my people that they may be gathered in, who are scattered upon all the face of the land, in unto the New Jerusalem.
~ III Nephi 21: 22-24
The very first thing you need when you are preparing to build or live in community is to intentionally find ways of changing your culture. Your culture is the sum total of the customs, arts, social institutions, behavior & attitudes of a group of people. To successfully build Zion you must intentionally learn to live The Culture of Zion. The Culture of Zion is different that other known culture bases. In sociological studies they have identified OBJECT oriented cultures, CONCEPT oriented cultures, and ACTION oriented cultures. Those cultures have placed objects, ideas, and actions as the method used to establish values. The Culture of Zion is a RELATIONSHIP oriented culture base which means more VALUE is placed on having and maintaining the proper relationships with others and with your environment than in the other culture base concepts. There is a lot to learn about this and a forthcoming resource will be The Handbook of Established Righteousness which will have a section on teaching the Culture of Zion.
This page is going to be a work in progress as we will add to it from time to time. It is intended to be a resource page for those who are in the process of organizing and building communities of the people of the Lord. We have been a community since 1988 and there have been a lot of mistakes and bumps in the road, but we would like to share some resources with others to hopefully shortcut some of those experiences for new community builders. Not all of the information here will apply to each group based on unique weather or land requirements in different parts of the country (or even world!), but it is a place to start when someone has no starting place.
In talking with new residents who have shared with us some of their “ideas” about what they think a community needs, we have heard quite a lot of fantastical ideas and realized “we did that, too!” - thirty years ago. There are many time and money wasting pitfalls in the temporalities of building a community. A word of advice would be: don’t try to re-invent the wheel. There are tons of resources from people who have paved the way and done the research in all these areas; don’t try to “improve” too much. There are also many indigenous peoples who have been living in harmony with their environment for thousands of years. You will have to find a balance between 1) being in a hurry and slapping things together and 2) making everything perfect, just how you like it. Seek the Lord very purposefully and be open to where He leads you.
We’ll add book titles with commentary, or websites with free information according to broad topics. We sincerely hope this is helpful to all, and if anyone has a helpful addition to make, then contact us through our email address and we will consider adding it to the page. Blessings!
Gardens - there are thousands of books on gardens and gardening, so this is just a small suggestion list of books and resources that we have found helpful over the years.
Joy of Gardening by Dick Raymond - a good basic, starter book for those who have never gardened. He’ll help you feel that you can do it!
How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible… by John Jeavons
The Sustainable Vegetable Garden by John Jeavons and Carol Cox - John Jeavons introduced us to the idea of intensive gardening - very effective for creating a microclimate for your plants - space saving too!
The Year Round Vegetable Gardener by Niki Jabbour and Joseph De Sciose - fantastic book on greenhouse, grow box, or tunnel gardening - YOU NEED FRESH FOOD all year long and this is a great resource
Growing Food in the Southwest Mountains - A guide to high altitude, semi-arid home permaculture gardens. 4th Edition (2013) by Lisa Rayner and Selected Illustrations by Zackery Zdinack - special resource for those of you out west
Growing Food in a Hotter, Drier Land: Lessons from Desert Farmers on Adapting to Climate Uncertainty by Gary Paul Nabhan - another resource for you folks living out west
Land Management
Farmers of Forty Centuries: Permanent Agriculture in China, Korea and Japan by F.H. King - this is THE BOOK on taking care of your land, farming, composting from people who have lived intensively in dense populations for four thousand years.
Food: cooking & preserving
Cookin' with Home Storage by Peggy Layton & Vicki Tate - great starter book for cooking with all those stockpiled dry good you may have
Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving - good recipes but basically HOW to use a pressure canner correctly and without fear
Heating & Cooking with Fire
Build your Own Barrel Oven by Max & Eva Edleson - great kitchen oven for a growing community, heats fast to bake large batches of bread or pizza then casseroles and such. Good testimonials.
Livestock
Tools
Health & Medicine - there are tons of books on home remedies and herbal medicine. Some are rather complicated and even use herbal combination that are from other countries so the ingredients have to be purchased from far away. We prefer “simples.” Simple herbal remedy is using the fewest ingredients in the simplest form to meet the need. It is a much better way to get into herbals and feel confident. Remember that this is a list of books we like - not a diagnosis or treatment plan.
Be Your Own Doctor by Rachel Weaver - one of the best around for those who are new to herbal medicine. She is plain talking and has lots of testimonial stories. Terrible index is the only complaint about Rachel’s books.
Be Your Child’s Pediatrician by Rachel Weaver
Backyard Pharmacy by Rachel Weaver
Healing Wise by Susun Weed - she is a colorful character with a few kinda “out there” beliefs - but, she hears the plants talk to her and is a wonderful resource for simples that you can use right in your backyard. Ignoring some of her cosmic ideology you can learn A LOT about ordinary plants like dandelion and chickweed from reading this little book.
Waste Management & Composting - an essential topic for folks living off the land. You don’t want to waste your precious resources - but you also don’t want to pollute your wells and surface water, so this is an important topic.
The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure by Joseph Jenkins
https://appalachiantrail.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/backcountry-sanitation-manual-2-0-august-2014.pdf - this is a free manual developed by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy for backcountry hiking trails to have “rest areas” on mountains with no soil - great resource!!
Good paper on methods of composting human waste & hygiene: (copy & paste into your browser) https://www.frostburg.edu/faculty/rkauffman/_files/images_preppers_chapters/Ch08-Sanitation.pdf
Water
Essential Rainwater Harvesting: A Guide to Home-Scale System Design by Rob Avis P. Eng, Michelle Avis P. Eng
Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands and Beyond, by Brad Lancaster (Author), Andy Lipkis
Family Guidance & Parenting - you might be surprised by this category, but living close with one another in a holy community doesn’t making parenting issues “go away.” These books are great resources for families who want to raise godly children with principals and good standards. Makes for peaceful community living and the principals can be applied broadly to adults living in community, too.
Parenting a House United by Nicholeen Peck - the “parenting bible”
Roles by Nicholeen Peck - an allegorical overview of the system presented in the title above; both are great!! Can’t say enough good about these books.