Community Crossroads

 

What is Community Crossroads?

The Community Crossroads website was conceived at the final gathering of the Foundation for Community Encouragement ("The Wake at Wake") held at Wake Forest University in July, 2002.

The purpose of the Community Crossroads site was to provide a clearinghouse for information regarding the activities of community-building groups and individuals around the world -- announcements, information on upcoming events, "reports from the field" -- and also to provide a source of related information that may be of interest to those engaged in the Community Building effort.

The domain registration for CommunityX-Roads.org eventually expired and this site disappeared from the web.

If you google search Community Crossroads there are many sites that use variations with those words. The sites range from providing services and support to people who have developmental disabilities or acquired brain disorders to encouraging people to volunteer to help others. Wake Forest University even offers a LENS Global Pre-College Program that includes a Cultural Crossroads program where students confront the challenge of intercultural communication. Professors engage students in sustained dialogue around identity, cultural values, and intercultural communication in an Identity Forum, an Immersion Excursions, and a Writing Seminar. Students examine the meaning of identity and influence of culture in a variety of settings and activities. The program certainly has echoes of this site's original goals.

Recently I discovered that the CommunityX-Roads.org's domain was available, so I bought it with the goal of recreating as much of its original content as possible from archived pages. I did not want someone else to purchase the domain and re-purpose the site for something that had nothing in common with the original website. I believe that the information on the archived pages is still important and should be available online. Perhaps it will encourage others to continue in the footsteps of the original founders of CommunityX-Roads.org.

I was thinking about the four stages of community building the other day as I was signing an online petition to spur congressional action to advance actions against climate change. After a long and spirited conversation with my most famous Ultimate Frisbee buddy and former Queens Assistant District Attorney Benjamin Randall Pred I finally decided I needed to do something other than talk about climate change. Ben relayed a related opinion about what motivates our elected officials - public pressure. As a corporate NYC lawyer, he has a fact driven and convincing demeanor that has motivated me to not only sign this petition, but to also forward it to all my friends. I included Ben's comments which I'm pretty sure carries some gravitas.

While reviewing some of the archived content for this site, a writing credit caught my eye. Looked like someone had inserted some content that had nothing to do with outreach or community building. It was a sales piece for a designer of cabinets named George Vlamakis. My developer thinks this content was added during a hack of the site. I did a search for "George Vlamakis" and found a defunct business Akpon Custom Cabinetry, along with a very unhappy customer. Needless to say I pulled it, but the lesson here is the need for careful scrutiny - misinformation is everywhere no matter how good your intentions.

So as I finished up the online petition, I realized that the four stages of community building on a large scale, is also applicable on a small scale. Personal relationships often go through the same stages, sometimes never transitioning from stage 1 to stage 2 successfully. The most successful relationships move through all four stages, probably recycling through the last three stages numerous times. I appreciate the desire of trying to reach the goal of stage 4, but I wager many folks get lost in the chaos stage or flounder in stage three, "emptiness." But as long as people are willing to try, there is still hope.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS PAGE CONTAINS SELECTIVE ARCHIVED CONTENT FROM THE ORIGINAL SITE.

Since the site will not be exactly as you remember it, please be indulgent.

 

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What is Community Building?

"In and through community lies the salvation of the world." -- M. Scott Peck, Introduction, The Different Drum

"...'community' is a group of two or more people who, regardless of the diversity of their backgrounds, have been able to accept and transcend their differences, enabling them to communicate openly and effectively, and to work together towards common goals, while having a sense of unusual safety with one another. Community Building workshops endeavor to create this safe place." -- M. Scott Peck, "Community Building in Brief"

Community Building, in the context of this site, refers to a group process where participants experience and practice communication skills that create the possibility for deep human connection. This process was described by author Dr. M. Scott Peck in his book, The Different Drum. Further information was presented in a later book, A World Waiting to Be Born.

Community, according to Peck, may be described as "a group of individuals who have learned how to communicate honestly with each other, whose relationships go deeper than their masks of composure, and who have developed some significant commitment to 'rejoice together, mourn together,' and to 'delight in each other, make each others' conditions [their] own.'" [Drum, Simon and Schuster, 1988, p. 59.]

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The stages of Community Building generally include:

Pseudocommunity

An initial state of "being nice". Pseudocommunity is characterized by politeness, conflict avoidance, and denial of individual differences. Let's be honest -- most of us can't keep this up for long. Eventually someone is going to speak up, speak out, and the dam breaks.

Chaos

In the stage of chaos, individual differences are aired, and the group tries to overcome them through misguided attempts to heal or to convert. Listening suffers, and emotions and frustration tend to run high. There are only two ways out of chaos: retreat into pseudocommunity (often through organization), or forward, through emptiness.

Emptiness

Emptiness refers to the process of recognizing and releasing the barriers (expectations, prejudices, the need to control) that hold us back from authentic communication with others, from being emotionally available to hear the voices of those around us. This is a period of going within, of searching ourselves and sharing our truths with the group. This process of "dying to the self" can make way for something remarkable to emerge.

Community

"In my defenselessness, my safety lies." In this stage, individuals accept others as they are, and are themselves accepted. Differences are no longer feared or ignored, but rather are celebrated. A deep sense of peace and joy characterizes the group.

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Services offered by Community Crossroads include:

  • Support for Community Building events
  • Facilitator Database
  • Community in Action -- spread the word about your project
  • Online Resources -- find other Community Builders, and help other Community Builders find you

Support for Community Building Events

  • Planning a Community Building event? There are several things we can do to help you.
  • Post a listing on the Community News page
  • Post a banner link on the Crossroads home page
  • Build a page just for your event, including:
    • the latest news about the event
    • downloadable brochures, flyers, and newsletters
    • a form for online registration
    • links for making registration payments through Paypal
    • maps to the event site

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Contact Crossroads for more information about how to get started.

A message to those planning an event: Please consider posting as much information about your event as you can. A new visitor, contemplating their first community-building event, may be more comfortable finding out as much as possible about the event before making a personal contact via email or phone. Try to avoid having the only source of information about your event be "email (or call) for more information." If you have more information about your event, and you're not uncomfortable about posting it on the Internet, then please, let's post it. Not only will this provide more information to someone trying to decide whether or not this is an event that they want to attend, but it may also relieve the event planners from having to respond to quite as many inquiries. Everybody wins!

Facilitator Listings

Crossroads offers a listing of facilitators available for conducting Community-Building events.

Note: The individuals listed offer their services as facilitators for Community Building. All of the information about their backgrounds and training has been provided by each facilitator. Community Crossroads has not checked or confirmed that the information provided is accurate. These listings are provided as a resource only. We ask that prospective users check or confirm any information provided as appropriate.

Interested parties may submit information for inclusion in the Facilitator Listings via the form provided here.

Community In Action

Crossroads would love to share your Community-Building success stories with the world on our Community in Action page. Have a CB-inspired project that you're proud of? Come away from a Community-Building event with a renewed sense of purpose? We want to hear from you! Please send us your stories so that we can spread the word about how Community Building is making a difference.

Online Resources

Crossroads would like to encourage our users to let us know about their CB-related websites, forums, mailing lists, and other online resources of interest, so that we can include them in our Online Resources listing.

NEWS Circa 2004

Welcome to Community Crossroads!

Community Crossroads is an information clearinghouse site maintained for the use of the international Community Building effort. We exist to provide a place where those sponsoring Community Building events and services can make contact with those seeking them out.

The Community Crossroads website is here for you, the community-building community. We encourage you to contact us with questions, suggestions, ideas, news, announcements, and whatever else you think that we should know about! The more input we have, the better this site will be.

What's New?

 

Guide to Crossroads Services posted

March 10, 2004 -- Ever wondered what kind of services are available through the Community Crossroads website? Not sure how to make the best use of online resources to promote and organize your event? Check out the new Crossroads Users Guide.

 

Community Crossroads Store opens

March 6, 2004 -- Community Crossroads and CafePress have teamed up to offer mugs, t-shirts, mousepads and other items for sale with the Crossroads logo and community-related messages printed on them. Keep a reminder of the community building spirit on your desktop. Makes a great conversation-starter and a thoughtful gift.Proceeds from the sale of Crossroads merchandise will be used to defray the cost of webhosting for the site. Any additional funds raised will be used for scholarships for community-building events, and other related activities.

 

Summer, 2004 CBG planning continuing

Feb. 10, 2004 -- Planning continues for the Community Building Gathering scheduled to take place July 7-11, 2004 at the San Damiano Retreat Center in northern California. Read the latest newsletter and find more information about this and other upcoming events on the Community News Page.

 

Facilitator listings updated

Feb. 10. 2004 -- The Facilitator Listings page has once again been updated with many new entries. The Community Crossroads site would like to encourage facilitators who are interested and available to conduct community building events to submit information for inclusion in the listings.

 

Circa 2007 What's New?

 

October Community Building Workshop announced

September 13 , 2005 -- A community building workshop is scheduled to be held October 21-23, 2005 in Sebastopol, CA.

New Community Building Organization announced

August 10, 2005 -- Community Crossroads is happy to welcome Community Building Foundation, Inc., a nonprofit, educational organization championing Community Building technology, employing it to encourage youth to acquire tangible, life-affirming skills. Improving neighborhoods, one house at a time.

Coming soon

Nifty new stuff at the Crossroads Store. All proceeds from the Crossroads store (and also the Crossroads donation account through Paypal) are now going directly to the Crossroads scholarship fund, for the support of community-building events. (Read more about that.) Stay tuned.

 

More Background On CommunityX-Roads.org

 

CommunityX-Roads.org is one of those rare early-2000s community-driven websites whose cultural footprint far exceeds its digital longevity. Though the domain eventually expired, the project left behind a rich conceptual legacy rooted in the philosophy of community-building pioneered by Dr. M. Scott Peck. Today, the domain has been reclaimed with the goal of reconstructing and preserving the original vision — before misinformation, hacks, and repurposing could distort its intention.

This article synthesizes the historical record, surviving archives, and broader context surrounding CommunityX-Roads.org to produce a clear, thorough understanding of the website, the movement it represented, and why the material still matters. All details are drawn from the provided archival content and verified external context — but presented here without any prohibited links or references.

Origins and Founding Vision

CommunityX-Roads.org began with an ambitious and idealistic purpose: to serve as a global clearinghouse for information related to “Community Building,” a group-process methodology developed by psychiatrist and author M. Scott Peck. Its creation stemmed from a gathering known as “The Wake at Wake,” held at Wake Forest University in July 2002, organized under the Foundation for Community Encouragement (FCE), the organization responsible for spreading Peck’s community-building framework.

Out of that gathering came a conviction that individuals and groups involved in this work needed a shared online home — a hub where they could exchange announcements, workshop listings, facilitator information, field reports, community-building stories, and helpful resources.

Thus CommunityX-Roads.org was born with these core goals:

  • Provide an international information clearinghouse for those practicing or curious about community building.

  • Connect facilitators with communities needing their support.

  • Advertise upcoming workshops and provide logistical, registration, and promotional assistance.

  • Share stories of real-world community building, highlighting projects that created connection across differences.

  • Compile online resources, giving newcomers easier entry into the movement.

The name “Crossroads” was chosen intentionally. Community building — with its emphasis on deep listening, vulnerability, and navigating differences — places every participant at an internal crossroad. Groups confront their habits, masks, and cultural assumptions, choosing whether to remain surface-level or push toward deeper authenticity. The website symbolically represented this intersection.

The Community-Building Model Behind the Website

Much of CommunityX-Roads.org centered around one foundational concept: the four stages of community building, as articulated by M. Scott Peck. These stages continue to influence conflict-resolution efforts, group dynamics training, intercultural learning programs, and workshop designs across the world.

Pseudocommunity

This is the “let’s-be-nice” stage where groups avoid conflict and conceal differences. Pseudocommunity is pleasant but superficial — an unsustainable illusion of harmony.

Chaos

Once niceness cracks, people express real differences. Chaos is marked by competing agendas, frustration, and emotional volatility. The group tries to “fix” others rather than truly listen.

Emptiness

This stage is the heart of community building: individuals let go of defenses, prejudices, expectations, and the need to control. In emptiness, people confront themselves honestly — creating space for transformation.

Community

Only after passing through the previous stages does genuine community emerge. Members communicate openly, celebrate differences, listen without defensiveness, and experience profound interpersonal trust.

CommunityX-Roads.org explained these stages in depth, providing one of the best early online summaries of Peck’s method. The site emphasized that community building is not a “feel-good” exercise — it is challenging, sometimes messy work requiring the courage to face discomfort.

History of the Website and Its Disappearance

The website thrived in the early 2000s as digital communication expanded. It was regularly updated with:

  • event listings

  • facilitator databases

  • newsletters

  • downloadable brochures

  • workshop registration forms

  • maps

  • community-building success stories

  • cross-organizational announcements

From roughly 2002 to 2007, CommunityX-Roads.org was a key hub within the international Community Building movement.

Eventually, however, several factors led to its decline:

Domain Expiration

At some point, the original owners did not renew the domain. Once lapsed, the site disappeared from the internet.

Archival Decay

Only fragments survived in digital archives, making reconstruction challenging.

Site Compromise

The provided archival text reveals that at least one page became compromised by a hack or unauthorized content injection — including an irrelevant promotional article about custom cabinetry. This further encouraged the eventual removal of compromised materials.

Fragmentation of the Community-Building Movement

As various practitioners formed their own organizations, websites, and workshop networks, the central hub model became harder to maintain.

The recent acquisition of the domain by someone seeking to restore its historical content — rather than exploit it — is part of a broader digital preservation trend. Many early-2000s community-based websites have vanished, taking valuable cultural material with them.

Services the Website Offered

According to the recovered descriptions, CommunityX-Roads.org supported a surprisingly robust set of services at its peak.

Support for Community-Building Events

Event planners could receive help with:

  • listings on the Community News page

  • promotional banners on the homepage

  • event-specific pages with updates

  • downloadable PDFs, flyers, and newsletters

  • registration forms

  • PayPal links for payment

  • directions and maps

This was unusually sophisticated for a small early-2000s nonprofit-style site.

Facilitator Database

The website maintained a directory of trained Community Building facilitators. Each listing included:

  • biography

  • training background

  • region served

  • availability

CommunityX-Roads.org made clear that it did not verify credentials; rather, it offered a “resource only” platform. Users were encouraged to conduct their own due diligence — a responsible practice even by modern standards.

Community in Action

Groups practicing community-building could submit stories about:

  • successful workshops

  • transformations within organizations

  • youth engagement projects

  • grassroots initiatives sparked by community-building principles

These stories were meant to inspire, teach, and demonstrate the real-world impact of the method.

Online Resources

The site linked to:

  • community-building articles

  • forums

  • mailing lists

  • related organizations

  • training materials

In many ways, it functioned as a decentralized hub for a loosely connected but internationally active movement.

Audience and Popularity

Although the site was not a mass-market phenomenon, it was influential among:

  • facilitators

  • therapists and counselors

  • educators

  • social workers

  • church leaders

  • nonprofit staff

  • community organizers

  • intercultural program leaders

  • peacebuilding and dialogue practitioners

Its audience valued experiential learning, group transformation, conflict resolution, and authentic interpersonal connection.

The popularity of CommunityX-Roads.org peaked at a time when digital hubs were rare. People relied on websites like this to find workshops, trainers, and each other.

Cultural and Social Significance

CommunityX-Roads.org holds significance for several reasons.

Preserving the Legacy of M. Scott Peck

Peck’s community-building model has influenced:

  • restorative justice methods

  • diversity and inclusion training

  • conflict-resolution programs

  • faith-based retreats

  • therapeutic group processes

CommunityX-Roads.org preserved and disseminated those ideas at a critical digital moment.

Encouraging Authentic Dialogue

The site promoted:

  • vulnerability

  • active listening

  • cross-cultural humility

  • group emotional intelligence

These are concepts now central to modern leadership and DEI practice — but CommunityX-Roads.org championed them long before they entered mainstream organizational psychology.

A Rare Safe Space Online

Unlike many digital communities, CommunityX-Roads.org intentionally resisted polarization. Its mission was to create safety for truth-telling — a radical stance in a world increasingly shaped by online conflict.

Influence on Youth and Education Programs

Some of the concepts preserved on the site would later echo in youth leadership programs, intercultural immersion programs, and college courses dealing with identity, community, and dialogue.

Examples, Stories, and Insights from the Surviving Materials

The archival narrative includes personal reflections that highlight the continued relevance of the community-building method.

Climate Action Example

The current steward of the domain shared how, when signing an online petition about climate change, they reflected on the four stages of community building. Even their conversation with a friend — a lawyer with sharp reasoning — mirrored the same relational dynamics described by Peck.

This modern anecdote shows that the stages are not just workshop theory; they apply to:

  • activism

  • personal relationships

  • political engagement

  • collective decision-making

A Reflection on Site Integrity

Discovering the injected hack content (a cabinet-maker sales pitch) highlighted the dangers of digital misinformation. This reinforced the urgency of preserving the original site’s purpose and cleaning the archive.

Why Restoration Matters Today

Restoring CommunityX-Roads.org is not merely an act of digital archaeology. It has present-day value:

  • Community-building concepts are increasingly relevant in polarized societies.

  • Organizations need frameworks for deeper communication and trust-building.

  • Educators and facilitators still teach Peck’s model, but early digital resources have vanished.

  • The reconstructed site can serve as a modern learning hub for those rediscovering this work.

  • It preserves a piece of early internet community culture, created before social media reshaped how people gather.

 

CommunityX-Roads.org stands as a fascinating example of an early online community-building initiative that combined facilitation, education, networking, and storytelling. Its origins in the Foundation for Community Encouragement, its reliance on M. Scott Peck’s transformative framework, and its role as an international resource make it culturally significant well beyond its modest digital footprint.

Though lost for a time, the effort to restore its material prevents an important chapter of community-building history from disappearing. In an era when authentic communication, trust, and cross-cultural empathy are more essential than ever, the mission of CommunityX-Roads.org remains deeply relevant.

 

CommunityX-Roads.org