There's glory for you!' [said Humpty Dumpty]
`I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

Over the centuries, community and church have represented two different meanings of Christian fellowship. The exodus of men and women to the deserts of Egypt and Syria in the late third century onwards was a lay movement. No one knows precisely whether they were fleeing from persecution or the tax man or more positively were being led by the spirit to live a life of prayer in solitude. The Christians they had left behind were led by presbyters and bishops who were ordained persons of their local church. In time, the hermit movement was highly acclaimed by the church of the fifth century. But by then the lay movement of individuals had become a community movement of nuns, or monks who shared a common life. 'Church' became the title of the Christians in ordinary life, while 'Community' described the monks. But then, later, by the twelfth century, some monks were describing their monastery as the 'church' of the place of their community life. Confusing!

After the sixteenth century reformation in Europe these two descriptions of a single Christian commitment to Christ has often been highlighted with even greater emphasis. On the one hand those who maintained the bishop and priest as leaders of the 'church' and others who preferred to see the commitment as a 'community' of people without the traditional ordained leaders. It was the hardening of the 'priestly' ideas of the Middle Ages which led to this new cleavage of the one Christian fellowship. But while the early desert and urban Christians might have held similar notions of what Christian faith meant, the modern cleavage of 'church' and 'community' may probably each hold particular nuances of Christian understanding inherited from controversies in which their predecessors were involved. Controversies such as the meaning of the death of Jesus, the idea of a literal notion of the biblical writings and the realistic or symbolic understanding of Holy Communion. These are often strongly held points of view - regarded as 'orthodox' doctrines by 'church' or 'community'. All this medley of Christian views is well known. What is not so well known is how far back into the history of the Christian Community these ideas go. While non-church Christian communities maintain a lay aspect, yet their pedigree goes back to particular ecclesiastical stances in the past. 'Church' has inherited aspects of a negative attitude to 'lay' Christianity.

'Community' or 'Church'? Perhaps it is time in the 21st century to be loosed from these shackles of the past, at least in terms of realising how we have both arrived at the knock-down positions we hold? For our common life, love and truth is the risen Lord and our witness in him to the Father's kingdom, into which we appear to enter through separate gates! What we need is a space in which to grow in truth and worship - something like the space revealed in the photograph this month! I think that we shall see from the Springs dancers in October, the sense of the need for each other when Jesus invites us to share the one space with him.