I recently took a survey of several leaders in our church and asked them to name what they think is the greatest barrier to community. Do you know what the overwhelming response was?

Individidualism.

The “autonomous self” is closer to home than I imagined. Extreme individualism has done more damage to community and mission than could ever be imagined. And in beheading community, we have inadvertently killed the means for justice and compassion. Yet the heart still yearns for justice…and community.

N.T. Wright, a modern-day C.S. Lewis and apologist for the gospel, recently wrote a book called Simply Christian. Meant in many ways to mimic the apologetic tour-de-force of Lewis’ Mere Christianity, Wright was intentional and strategic in how he planned the content of the book to address the concerns of the postmodern mind. And of all the subjects he could have chosen to begin his book, do you know which one he chose? The issue of justice.

Community and missional living are not just two separate “Christian events” in which we participate, they are Siamese twins. They are two inseparable values, two inextricable forces which were meant to be wed together. “And what God has joined together, let no man separate,” could be quoted here to express the importance of their union.