How do we practice what we preach?

A good friend and reader of this blog, Patrick Devane, was recently called to pastor a church in Thomson, GA. Congratulations to him and Megan. This pastorate will require him to live in Thomson while still commuting here to Atlanta a good portion of the time. He and Megan are finishing their last semester of seminary this fall. Megan will be staying here in Atlanta probably three or four nights a week and Patrick probably two nights a week. Megan and Patrick are planning on keeping their apartment here in Atlanta as well as having somewhere to live in Thomson. Jana and I have already told Megan any night she doesn't want to sleep in an empty apartment she's welcome to stay in our spare bedroom. I had the passing thought of telling Patrick and Megan to just stay at our place and ditch the Atlanta apartment. It was only a passing thought until Jana said the same thing without knowing that it had been on my mind.

You see, two things I get on my soapbox about are living in community and being good stewards of resources. Jana and I do consider Megan and Patrick to be a part of our faith community, so shouldn't we make this offer to them? Is it a good use of our resources(space) for me and Jana to have an extra bedroom while Patrick and Megan use their resources(money) to maintain what may be unneeded space?

The offer has been made and everyone seems to agree it's a good idea in theory. The question is how do we make it work in practice? How do we share the space of our apartment and not get on each others' nerves? It's agreed that if any party decides this is not a good idea we won't go through with it and there will be no hurt feelings. But it seems like its the right thing to do. So how do we pull this off? Any thoughts ranging from theological to practical will be accepted. Megan and Patrick feel free to read and comment as well.

Adam