In the modern west the sort of thick community, that which would allow us to witness each others’ Christians lives lived up close, is often unattractive to us. It requires us to give up some of our rights for the benefits of others. It requires us to privilege particular individuals (rather than a vague ‘everyone’ which is much easier but not what Jesus demands of us) over ourselves. 

In the last post on the causes of the discipleship crisis, I explored why Sundays are shallow. The gathered worship of the church is supposed to be the pattern of life for the church scattered and for the life of the world. However, it’s not supposed to be the training pitch of that culture.

Because our communities have narrowed and atrophied our opportunities to encounter and catch what the life of faith and faith formation look like have narrowed to just an hour and a half on a Sunday morning. If you’ll forgive the machinespeak: it’s unsurprising that if you reduce the inputs, the output lowers too. Except that isn’t how it works, but it is how it looks.

There was day, now long past, when we would have all been involved in webs of community within our localities, reinforced through many different associations, of which the church would have been the keystone. For an array of reasons those days are long gone; and while we can lament, they won’t naturally arise again in our lifetimes.

What does that mean that we’ve lost? Previously you would have seen people live their Christian lives in front of you, their foibles and sin visible as you all looked to Christ to redeem you. Their patterns and rhythms of life would have been open to you. The opportunities to express your frustrations and challenges, as well as to see how Christ applies to all of life, would have been myriad.

This is probably a little rose-tinted. I’m sure plenty of ordinary Christians didn’t muse about the faith down the coal mine or bring Christ into everything that they did. However, they would have prayed together and sung together. Those sorts of communal habits are forming to our hearts and our households.

I don’t think we can simply recover those patterns—not in our lifetimes anyway, though working for the long haul two generations hence would be worth a lot—

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