Dwelling Places: Q&A with Lakshmi Piette Walker

We speak to Lakshmi Piette Walker, author of new book Dwelling Places, about the different ways some people build community.

Hi, Lakshmi. Would you introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your background?

I grew up in Durham to Indian-French, Belgian parents of Hindu and Roman Catholic faith, where I experienced what it was to be loved; where my godmother taught me how to play and delight as a child of God; and where I intuitively found spiritual grounding among nature. I later moved to Cambridge, where I experienced a coming-alive at living in Christian community; where I learnt how to see others as beloved by God; and where I learnt to feel God’s embrace in the wind. To my surprise, I then found myself in Indiana, USA, where a seminary education drew me deeper into the mystery of God, and where growing in relationship with my now-husband drew me deeper into the depths of human and divine love. I now live between Carlisle and the Lake District where I am learning anew to trust and surrender as a new chapter unfolds.

You have written and previously spoken about different types of intentional Christian communities (ICCs). Can you explain what these are?

Sure! I broadly define intentional Christian communities (ICCs) as groups of people – loosely at least three unrelated persons or at least two families – who have chosen to intentionally live together in ways that honour and reflect the demands and witness of the Christian gospel. Living together can take many different forms – for example, in the same home, across a site or across multiple houses in the same neighbourhood – and intentional communal commitments help orient life toward the ways of the gospel, generally involving shared meals and times of prayer (at least weekly), a shared ministry, postures and patterns of relating, which help to build one another up in love, and, to a greater or lesser degree, shared goods and finances.

There are also dispersed ICCs whose members do not physically live together, but who together commit to and encourage one another in a shared way of life, of prayer and service, which they each live out in their respective contexts.

Within this broad definition there is so much variety!

Tell us about your new book, Dwelling Places, which introduces a typology of different communities in the UK. What inspired you to write this?

Shortly after graduating from university, I was led to the Lyn’s House community: an ecumenical, intergenerational, mixed-ability ICC where we gather as friends to dwell with and celebrate one another and God. During my two-year residency with the community, my life was fundamentally changed. Lyn’s House revealed to me what the Kin(g)dom of God was about. Here I experienced a quality of relating – of truly seeing every person as a beloved child of God – which unveiled my eyes to see a world abundant with giftedness and beauty.

Changed by the social and spiritual witness of the Lyn’s House community, I felt called to explore other such places. I took a sabbatical and dwelt alongside a variety of ICCs in the UK, writing community profiles and interviewing community members on my way, which then grew into the Dwelling Place podcast and blog. Friends and mentors started asking me whether I would write a book synthesizing learnings and observations, and this book was born!

In trying to summarize the variety of ICCs I had experienced, I found myself starting to use a seven-fold typology. It became apparent that this was a helpful tool to conceptualize the diversity of ICCs, and became the organizing structure for the book.

You have experience of several ICCs yourself. What are the key misconceptions you think Christians can have about them? What can be done to combat that?

People’s frame of reference for intentional community is often related to the 1960s hippie movement; it’s a starting point, but quite limited and misrepresentative. People can also struggle to conceive of how intentional community can be anything but toxic, given the various real-life horror stories of cults.

Specifically within Christianity, I’ve often experienced lack of conception rather than misconceptions; the imagination is left floundering for what ICC is outside of monasticism.

For those with some ICC experience, there can be limited knowledge of other models of ICC. Among monastics, there can be a slightly elitist suspicion about the spiritual health of lay ICCs. And some hold competitive concerns about the impact of ICCs on the institutional church. One of my hopes for Dwelling Places is that it will give people concrete examples of contemporary ICCs, in ways which can expand conceptions and imaginations of what the Christian life can look like – and how nourishing and beautiful it can be!

I also think it’s helpful to look at the history of the Early Church, the desert fathers and mothers, traditional monasticism, the ICC movements of the middles ages (such as the Beguines, Devotia Moderna), the radical Reformation communities, post-Vatican II Roman Catholic ICCs – and realize that contemporary ICCs are situated within a 2000-year, Spirit-filled history of Christians coming together to intentionally and wholeheartedly live by the gospel in societally and spiritually transformative ways.

Who would you most like to read the book? Did you have anyone in mind while writing it?

Dwelling Places is dedicated to those whose souls long for the living God. For those who’ve lost faith in the church but still hold faith in God. For those awake to the demands of the gospel and seeking deeper integration of belief and practice. For those who sense that there are more truthful ways to live. For those who seek others with whom to share life in God. For those pondering how to communicate the reality of God to those they have been spiritually entrusted with. For those despairing, and in need of signs of hope.

Dwelling Places is for spiritual seekers, de-churched Christians, regular churchgoers and Christian professionals alike, pointing to how ICCs are home to, and are of relevance for, people across the spectrum of spirituality and religion. No matter what people’s relationship to Christianity and the church, I pray Dwelling Places will reveal how the Spirit inspires people and communities to embody the vibrant, radical love of Divine Reality.

Dwelling Places also directly addresses church leaders to actively consider how the church and its resources might assist with the nurturing and support of ICCs, to build up ICC–church relationships and further the church’s witness and the inbreaking of the Kin(g)dom.

If there is one thing that you’d like people to take away from your book, what would it be?

That ICCs are places of profound spiritual and social transformation, and that their wholehearted witness to the gospel can help us experience the Kin(g)dom of God and animate us in the way of Love.

Lakshmi Piette Walker is a writer, researcher, podcaster and practitioner, who lives in Cumbria, UK where she is a part of the Rose Community.

Her new book, Dwelling Places, is published in April 2026 and available to order here, with 20% off all orders before the end of the month.