Key to making missional communities work well is a shared life. This is surely at the heart of New Testament Christianity. It is also about sharing our lives together. Doing ordinary life together. Having our lives intersect. That requires a certain size. We’re talking about 10, 20, 30 people. You can’t share your life with 100, 200, 300 people.

Shared lives require proximity. Perhaps the most frequent question I had when I was in the States in October was about how church could create community when their members were spread over a wide area. Let’s take a church I spent some time with in New Jersey as an example. They have people living half an hour drive from the church building in one direction and half an hour drive in the other direction. So some people live an hour away from each other. How are they going to share their lives?

Let me suggest three possible responses:

1. Encourage people to join local churches

I wonder how many churches people pass as they drive half an hour to church each Sunday. Some will be dead and ready for burial. But many will be good churches. They may not be as good as the church people attend. But they may be faithful and engaged in their locality.

Why do people drive pass them? It reflects a consumer mentality. We shop for churches like we shop for groceries. If we don’t like the product then we take our business elsewhere. We end up at the big convenience store with the large parking lot and the local shops in Main Street that the old and the poor have to use wither and decline.

A second problem is our definition of ‘good’. We too often define ‘good’ in terms of the Sunday morning performance rather looking for a church that is reaching the broken people in its neighbourhood.

2. Move closer to one another

Consider our church in New Jersey. One of the members lives in a well-defined neighbourhood centred around a lake. There is a strong sense of neighbourhood, an active residents’ association, regular community events. This Christian family are getting to know their neighbours and last year they ran a backyard Bible school. Imagine if two other families moved into that neighbourhood with perhaps a single person living with one of the families. Now you have a team of seven, attending the church each Sunday, but then working together to reach that neighbourhood. Building relationships with neighbours. Getting involved in the residents’ association. Praying together. Sharing their lives. Involving unbelievers in their shared life. In time holding Bible studies. Dynamite!

There are six or seven households represented in the gospel community to which I belong back in Sheffield. All but one of those intentionally moved to be in that area, to reach that area together, to be community. With one exception, we all live within ten minutes walk of each other.

3. Jump in the car

Again, come back to our church in New Jersey. Some members lives one hour from each other. But of course they are all spread out across the area. So in fact most of them live within ten minutes of several other members. So why not cluster together with those who are near? Ten minutes is not far.

I live in an urban area. Twenty minutes feels like a long way away (and people would assume you meant 20 minutes walk). But in rural America people travel 20 minutes to get their groceries. So 20 minutes is near. You make that kind of journey several times a week. So why not jump in the car and pop over to see someone? Why not call and say, ‘We’re about to watch American Idol. Why don’t you come over and watch it with us?’ If you can drive 20 minutes to Walmart, why can’t you drive 20 minutes to share life with members of your Christian community?