Yeah, Mike I like the wrestle to make your church a real Christian community. I too believe that until we know how to love each other in the church it will be hard to 'convince' the non-members (I like W. Temple's quote) to join; afterall, Jesus said that "they would know us by our love". I have been serving in my local church for many years; various miniistries as you have. Some time ago I took the plunge to say that ministry wasn't enough and that if I couldn't love and didn't know how to be loved ('cause that, I came to understand, wasn't so easy either) then church was a form that had lost it's function. So, I openly used the words, "I need you" with a few people and suggested that maybe they needed me. I began to share my struggles honestly for the first time in my Christian experience of 35 years. I was shocked to discover that my past had a great influence on why some of those struggles had been around for many, many years. Many times I wanted to run and hide; my fear was not so much that they wouldn't love me rather I was afraid I would no longer be able to serve in the church or that I would be demoted. Well, that spoke to another lie that I unknowingly subscribed to and that was that if I hid my sin and my inner turmoil I was a better leader than if I honestly looked to God and my friends for healing. For several years now I have been sharing, confessing, healing the daily stuff of life in community. I can't turn back 'cause above all else I have learned to love my brothers and sisters; I am more likely to see them through the eyes of Jesus rather than judgement because I no longer judge myself and yet i am well acquainted with my weaknesses. I wanted to share also that it takes very little for Christian community to implode if at any time the focus becomes the 'members'. Christ must always and only be the center of community. Jesus said 'freely receive that you might freely give'. When my need for healing, peace, security, etc become my reason for community I have stepped into, probably unwittingly, a culture that is more intent on serving myself rather than Christ. I doesn't work. In reference to community being something we build because of our own dreams of what this community should look like, Dietrich Bonhoffer said (in his book, Life Together), "But God's grace frustrates all such dreams. A great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and , if we are fortunate, with ourselves, is bound to overwhelm us as surely as God desires to lead us to an understanding of genuine Christian community...The sooner this moment of disilusionment comes over the individual and the community, the better for both...Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest and sacrifical." In my personal experiences of Christian community I have been a part of that which seeks Jesus first and freely gives all that we have received. I have also seen many walk away just at the point where their disillusionment sets in and those things that they had hoped for came crashing down. That is the critical point where Jesus invites us, "come and die". We want to blame others for what we do not have and at that point we stop the very thing that Jesus is doing in our lives. Thanks Mike for the article.