Community

Don't you just love it when you read something that ties in with what you've been thinking and trying to express for some time? Brian McLaren talks about community in 'A Generous Orthodoxy' in the chapter on Anabaptists. He says something along the lines of:
Churches are keen on community. Seriously busy people try to add it onto their busy lives as they do membership of a health club (that they join and never use). It's an add on. Anabaptists (e.g. Amish / Mennonite communities) undertand that you have to START with community. It involves your whole life, the land you live on, your work, your relationships, your passions, etc.....
It's something I've been trying to articulate for some time. Simply in saying that you have to start with it I think he has grasped the essence of what community is about. Home groups, life groups, reality groups, whatever we call them always seem to end up being an add on, something else to go to, however helpful we may find them. They are always secondary to the main 'worship' meeting. Having extracted myself from that main gathering (or rather being unable to force myself into that mode) and being unable to come up with an acceptable model for something else, I wonder if this whole community thing may be one of the keys to the answer. Lifestyle changes would need to be radical, but wasn't that what Jesus was about? Western people seem not to be able to start thinking along these lines, it is so alien to us. Where do we start? The one thing I'm sure of is you can't do community on your own.