I don't want to make this an article about theories on community; rather, I want to offer some 'field observations'. First of all, it's fairly obvious that lack of proximity is a barrier to community, but I do not think it is the only barrier. In our area, the expensive housing market makes it difficult to choose to live together. For example, if a group of families decided to buy houses close to one another, they would be highly restricted location-wise by cost. If one family needed a four-bedroom house and the other a two-bedroom house, the four-bedroom family's options would be very limited (unless they were the rich family). Co-housing is also complicated. Scarcity and cost are issues along with the lack of a well-defined urban center. So we are left with a proximity that will always be just far enough to make natural, everyday contact a great challenge.

Another barrier to community is our faith community itself. It is still tempting to think of those people we worship with as the only ones we get real about our relationship with God. Oddly enough, it's often people outside the faith community we connect most deeply with - an old friend who lives in another state, a family member, a co-worker who attends another church. It is all too natural to shut off our transparency when we are apart from that group of people with whom we are so used to being transparent. We also still default to our segregated ways. We get spiritual at church with church people and act different with neighbors or co-workers. This is so natural in our culture, we do it without any thought.

A third barrier is our family responsibilities. My children are very needy right now. They require constant attention from sun-up to sun-down. We give tons of energy and focus to them and frankly, there's not much left over. What I do have left, I usually reserve for my wife first and then friends and family after that. So finding energy for broader relationships is a little like searching for change in the couch cushions. Sometimes you get lucky. Often you just get crumbs.

A final barrier is, well, just simply me. It's the plague of modernity - we want closeness without all the messiness of being close. It's far easier to manage our friendships and shield our isolation. I'm always a little tentative in asking questions about community because I know the answers might hit me right at the point of commitment. You know commitment? It's right where theory and ideas melt like wax before the awesome power of having to die to self. Yikes.

I’m sure I could go on to list many more barriers, but you get the point. Authentic Christian community, or even the more common variety, doesn’t grow on trees. So for an average Joe like myself living in Anywhere, America, where is the opportunity to taste of what we all long for?

Well, Mr. Bonhoeffer seems to think Christian community has a lot to do with stuff like Jesus and grace and love. Imagine that! Here’s one of my favorite quotes from Life Together:

“The community of Christians springs solely from the Biblical message of the justification of man through grace alone…Not what a man is in himself as a Christian, his spirituality and piety, constitutes the basis of our community. What determines our brotherhood is what that man is by reason of Christ. Our community with one another consists solely in what Christ has done to both of us.”

That’s seems pretty simple, right? Community forms around our common awareness of Jesus’ gift of grace to us through the cross to be able to live as his disciples here and now and forever. What a magnificently uncomplicated and wonderfully available reality!