A Upo Shirehold is envisioned as a mutual benefit community with standards and priorities that are based on an agreed-upon understanding of how to use the The 17 Protocols of Upadaria to promote mutual self-reliance, to provide mutual assurance in times of need, and to fulfill certain shared goals and purposes, especially to reach the lost, help the needy, and provide aid to Christian and other refugees and asylum seekers.
A Upo Shirehold would consist of multiple nuclear families and connected single adults who voluntarily identify as Peers of a spiritual nation whose God is the Lord. They also include all the people connected to these peers, including staff or workers who live in their households, people they may rent to, and people they host as guests who may be Christians in crisis or refugees.
Basically, a Upo Shirehold is an intentional community, even if it is distributed and its members don’t all live in the same location but merely near one another, that seeks mutual self-reliance based on shared ideals, principles, and practices and that has a heart for the lost, the needy, the unity of the Ecclesia of the Elect as a spiritual city-state, and Christian and other refugees.
We firmly believe that our breakthrough concept of spiritual nationhood provides the absolutely essential and necessary organic cohesiveness that alone can make close-knit collaborative relationships possible without recourse to top-down hierarchical systems of command and control. By making the ideals, principles, practices, mandates, and standards and norms which define this form of spiritual nationhood so transparent in an explicitly clear manner, we allow for purely voluntary freewill participation without any form of manipulation or coercion that violates the spiritual sovereignty of any person.
Anyone, anywhere, of any race or ethnicity, ancestry, citizenship, gender, or Christian denomination, regardless of any other status, including immigration status, can choose to adopt our nationality as their own and become an equal peer in our spiritual nation. This entire process of becoming a Peer of Upadaria is voluntary and, while one may take the Pledge with other Peers as a witness who affirm them in this, it is strictly and ONLY between the individual and YHWH. Becoming a Peer of Upadaria does not come with any demands from other human authorities, it has no cost, and it doesn’t require you to “join” any group or organization.
It is important to understand that anyone can become a Upadarian by learning and pledging before God alone to utilize our 17 Protocols in order to fulfill God’s scroll of destiny and purpose (wyrd) for their lives with excellence. How you do this, in what order, and in what priority, is up to you and any body of people who form on the basis of these 17 Protocols.
A Upo Shirehold, a word that combines “Shire” and “household”, is governed solely by Peers of Upadaria, but not all Peers will have the means or feel led at any given time to be part of a Shirehold. Another way to put this is, only Peers of Upadaria can form a Upo Shirehold, but not all Peers will be part of a Shirehold at any given time.
A Upo Shirehold is, however, one of the most significant innovations of our spiritual nation, being part of a community of multi-family extended households defined by shared values and ideals is a key aspect of our chosen way of life.
In an ideal scenario, most Upo Shireholds will have an Estate or Villa/Castle with individual residences for most members as well as residences for refugees and residences which are leased to the public on the basis of fair and housing laws (we will never discriminate in housing for any reason). But we expect that for the first few years or more most Shireholds will tend to be more like distributed intentional communities, even if one or more of their constituent extended household groups (Kinship Groups) has a small Estate or Villa for around 3-5 nuclear families, a few single adults, and some other residences for refugees and/or to be leased to the public.
A Shirehold community doesn’t have to have a single Estate or Grand Villa, or even multiple smaller Estates and Villas which most people have a residence within, in order to function as an intentional community that features mutual benefit, mutual assurance, and shared purposes and goals.
What makes a Shirehold a Shirehold is that its governing members, people with agency to make decisions, have a shared identity and purpose, mutually support one another, and pursue shared goals and purposes, all for the glory of God and the praise of His Name.
A Shirehold community has three core constituent parts: each Peer as a spiritually sovereign person, nuclear families based on a man and woman raising their own biological or adopted children as the ideal, and multi-family extended households of around 15 or so adults which include both nuclear families and the single adults connected to them.
A word on our concept of family is needed. We have definite convictions about what constitutes a Upadarian family. We believe that, while our concepts are not the same as Christian doctrine and are not incumbent upon all Christians, they are part of God’s purpose and destiny (wyrd) for our nation as a spiritual people whose God is the Lord. Everyone who knows they are called by God to become a Peer of our nation shares this conviction, even if, due to practical considerations, they cannot presently actualize this conviction.
It is also important to note that we recognize the human rights of all persons to define love and family as they see fit, it is between them and God, and despite our strong beliefs, we are FOR our way of life, not AGAINST anyone else’s way of life. While our own freewill participatory association is exclusive to people who choose the Upadarian way of life, including how we define things like marriage and family, in our relationships with others we practice no discrimination or differentiation and only see other people as equally spiritually sovereign beings made in God’s image.
A Upo Shirehold may have only Peers as its governance team and only include Peers as formal stakeholders, but it would not exclude or refuse to serve anyone on any basis other than that which is legally required. For instance, for businesses that a Shirehold may own that serve the public, absolute commitment to tolerance and non-discrimination would prevail, especially for housing.
The exclusivity of a Upo Shirehold is the same as for a single nuclear family because to us a Shirehold is the core family unit of our society. The same way an individual nuclear family controls who is part of it, so too a Shirehold. In our convictions about family, a Shirehold is quite literally the same kind of thing a nuclear family is.
As a Christian “nation”, defined on purely spiritual grounds through shared ideals, Upadaria has a distinct way of life. But within the broader society, which we desire to see become a free and pluralistic society of equals, we do not pursue exclusion from others of different nationalities or of different lifestyle convictions.
A Upo Shirehold could only be governed by Peers of Upadaria but it will almost certainly include and/or serve people of diverse backgrounds, beliefs, and convictions equally, fairly, and justly, without discrimination or prejudice on any basis. The relationship of non-peers to a Shirehold may be that of a customer to a provider, within the perfect democracy of a free market, or that of someone being ministered to by a ministry, but it will be a reciprocal relationship and a responsive relationship that engenders a free and pluralistic association of equally sovereign human beings.
We have to balance our own right of free association with people of the same spiritual and sociocultural essence with the larger need for a free and pluralistic society of equals that protects the human rights and human dignity of every person and that promotes human flourishing. We do not desire or embrace exclusionary communities that are isolated from the greater society, we seek to not be of this world (by not necessarily adopting it definitions and standards) while remaining connected to it; to be in this world and not of this world.
Upadarians are Christians who have distinct and purely voluntary convictions as well as shared purposes and goals. Only people of that calling and conviction can become Peers of our spiritual nation, but this by no means implies in any way that we would accept or allow discrimination against others who aren’t Upadarians or Christians on any basis whatsoever.
To limit our governing agency to persons of the same spiritual nationhood is perfectly just and right, and even essential to human dignity, human rights, and human flourishing. A society of diverse nationhoods based on freewill participation is a free and just society that benefits everyone equally and respects their individual and shared agency.
It is our unshakable conviction that spiritual nationhood is essential to forming purely voluntary free associations with a high degree of organic cohesiveness and without recourse to top-down hierarchical systems of command and control. Forming familial communities on this basis is perfectly within our God-given rights to freewill participation and free association in general.
The desire to not only alter historic orthodoxy regarding family and marriage for yourself, which is your right, but to somehow curtail others in forming bonds and associations that nurture the kind of family and marriage endorsed by historical orthodoxy is out of bounds. You have no right to interfere in our freewill participatory associations so long as everything we do in the public arena is based on respect for your human rights, human dignity, and human flourishing.
This covers, more or less, what a Upo Shirehold is.
The question is, how does one build a Shirehold community if this is what you desire?
As of August 2021, no Shirehold community exists. How we can form one is open to a process of experimentation and trial and error. Eventually we will be able to show examples others can follow.
It will be tempting to make a Shirehold on a broader basis. Such efforts would not be Upo Shireholds and, we believe, they would not be likely to succeed without a formal and hierarchical structure to keep everyone going on the same direction at all times. As we present this idea, we find already some who think we should form household groups and household communities based on much broader standards than the specific convictions of a specific spiritual nation. Some think everyone who embraces the Bill of Rights could form a Shirehold-like community. Some feel that everyone who is a Christian could form such a community on the basis of Kingdom essentials, like core Christian doctrinal and ethnical orthodoxy.
Our conviction is that something like a Shirehold community must be based on specific convictions that go beyond the Bill of Rights or beyond the universal orthodoxy of the historic Christian faith. There are many forms and types of freewill participatory associations that can be forged between people on a broader basis, like the Bill of Rights or historic Christianity. But the close-knit mutuality required of our concept of a Shirehold demands a much closer similarity in convictions about how to live and act in daily life.
Unless people organically, that is, from the heart, start from the same core ideals and etc. which are clearly defined in advance, the only way to keep them all together is through command and control methods. As we truly desire a familial community of equals whose only “bond” is strictly, voluntary, freewill participation, the only path we see is through our intentional shared national identity based on explicitly defined ideals, principles, practices, and mandates coming from shared beliefs, values, and convictions.
As noted, there are many other forms and levels of freewill participation that we can engage in with other people on a broader basis, but our basic familial unit, a community of around 120 adults related through an intentional nationality as their shared identity, is not a loose-knit collaborative association. It is kinship of the most intimate variety outside your own spouse and children. To be even more clear: we believe such an extended familial community of people who all care for one another as spiritual kin must have a high degree of organic cohesiveness in order to avoid top-down systems of command and control. What is more, it is our conviction that such familial communities of people are the core constituent entity and fractal of human civilization itself. For us, to repeat, a Shirehold governed mutually by fellow Peers of our spiritual nation is the core family unit.
The genesis of a Upo Shirehold is a body of people who are all Peers of Upadaria all gathering together for mutual benefit and to ascribe shared goals and purposes, as defined by the 17 Protocols of Upadaria. Therefore, it seems necessary that broadcasting a call to people to adopt these 17 Protocols in order to fulfill God’s best for their lives with excellence is a necessary precursor.
Essentially, you have to find the people whom God has called out to become peers of our spiritual nation. To do that, you have to broadcast the vision somehow, whether by giving people a link to our website or sharing the 17 Protocols, or something like that. You may, however, start more indirectly, without in any way being opaque in your intentions, by focusing on ways people can be more free or the need for mutual support, whereby you introduce the concepts more broadly than more specifically.
In some cases, perhaps many, we will see people connecting by means of the Upadaria Platform who live near each other. Some may emerge as an individual invites local friends and family to join the platform and those friends and family who adopt our spiritual nationality get together locally to begin building a Shirehold community.
The first step is basically to let others know about the vision of a new spiritual nation. This can be done by inviting them to the website, which is being set up now. The website will have a simple presentation which gives the visitor all the information they need to decide if this vision fits and enhances their own calling and purpose.
As the individual learns and decides that being part of our spiritual nation fits God’s purpose for their lives, then any small group of such people can begin to gather in person to explore the methods and means of forming a Round Table Group that has as its mission to eventually have a fully developed local Shirehold community. This starts on the simple basis of agreeing to practice mutual assurance and mutual support for self-reliance and to utilize the 17 Protocols as the guideline for your efforts.
These efforts may be guided by common standards and norms, so that any group building their own Upo Shirehold will be similar in spirit to all other groups, but they are also autonomous and not centrally controlled. Aside from licensing requirements to use our brand, a nominal $10 fee and licensing agreement, the effort is not controlled by anyone outside the group involved. In terms of priorities and order or sequence of activities, and their specific way things are done, the local group is in the driver’s seat.
Local Shirehold groups can opt to use our platform as their digital hub, if all members are subscribers to the platform, but they do not have to do so in order to autonomously build their own Upo Shirehold. Everything you need to know about Shireholds will be made available online for free and/or through some premium content that is reasonably priced. Our goal is to impart and equip but for local groups to build autonomously. We aim to ensure that nobody who desires to utilize the Upo model for building a Shirehold community is left behind on the basis of money.
