Bob and Ellen Stamps Community House
by Marilyn Elliott (DMin, 2006; MA, 1998), Vice President of Community Formation
In order to be, we need to belong. In order to belong, we need the safety of a shelter or a defined framework. Humans are not secure untethered and floating. Think about it: what we experience – falling in love, buying a car, attending a funeral – each of these life moments has a very specific frame or context; a time, a setting, a voice, or sometimes even a smell . In order to truly experience something as meaningful, to live it and feel it, we must experience it within some kind of framework that makes the experience safe and open to us. And when that setting recurs in our mind, it evokes powerful images and feelings.
Reflect on the idea of a sacred place. Where do you go back to in your mind (or in your car) when you need to remember who you are? Is there a dusty corner of a small town whose memory flashes you back to an experience of being deeply or freshly loved? What room or symbol or marker evokes an offering of true goodness brought into your life? When you think of a time you felt truly alive, where are you? What is the setting? There is always a setting.
In Kalas Village on the outskirts of Wilmore, KY, the Seminary has built a house. It is not a center, like the YMCA. It is not a retreat facility or a convention hall. What has been built is a house: a house to teach us about being a family; a house to teach us about love.
The Stamps Community House, named for Ellen and Bob Stamps, who have lived in the Village and loved its people, is constructed to accommodate every possible articulation of family life. All members of the community will have access to the spaces of the house, and these spaces will be shared and tended together. We are taking the concept of family as far as we can: beyond racial and cultural divides, beyond privacy and exclusion, beyond time with friends and into sheltering space and toward communal privacy. Can it be done? Only if we will be humble and learn.
This experiment in expanding our concept of family has the possibility of significant chaos and conflict. We are not used to doing life together in an intimate way for any extended period of time. But it also has the possibility of giving us glimpses of the Kingdom of God: liberating creativity, evoking belonging, challenging entitlement, generating spirituality, and binding hearts together in love.
The house has many spaces: an art room, kitchen, small stage area, great room that can seat 138 at tables, and a children’s chapel. The vision is that people will use the space together, making room for each other, just like a family must, to abide in peace. The problems will, no doubt, rise because of the smallest issues like smells of food, common commotion, the clumsiness of growing people, and disruption of plans. We welcome these disturbances as invitations. The process of formation certainly will include pain. It always does.
On September 2nd the official house opening will be enacted with ribbon cutting, a children’s choir and prayers. We are trusting God to sanctify sacred space in new ways, fostering messy, communal spirituality, human belonging and love, humor, forgiveness and vulnerability.
A grand fulfillment. PTL!
Met RJ Stamps in Jerusalem in 1973 and would like to contact him. Please pass my contact info to him.
If you will send your contact info to us via email at alumni@asburyseminary.edu, we will pass it on to him.
Dr Stamps was very kind to me and my wife Sharon, even visited some Civil War Sites . I just wanted him to know that she has very recently been diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer and as decided not to do chemo, “Bro Bob” has been such a source of strength to us in the past, I was hoping for s few words of strength now. Frank Palumbo
Bob and Ellen had a huge impact on my life when he pastored Park Avenue Methodist in Minneapolis, baptizing my daughters and being close family friends. This was in the late 1980s and 1990s. I would like to get in touch with them. Please pass my contact information on. Thank you!
Brother Bob was our chaplain and friend and pastor at ORU in 1970. He was a great support to us and dedicated our first son to the Lord in 1972 (Mark Israel). Our son is now a pastor in St. Louis. Thank you Brother Bob. Ron and Peggy Tucker