We associate postmodernism with a high level of diversity, fragmentation and complexity. I suppose a pastor will feel strongly connected to one particular expression of Christian community. But surely for most people now the experience of community is far from straightforward. As a family we have the community of people in our flats, our neighbours, we are part of a loose network of friends in the area, most of them parents of our children's friends, we belong to a conventional church fellowship, we are part of a church-planting core group which I hope will develop into a rather extensive cross-border community, we also feel connected to a genuinely global community of friends that we have met in various parts of the world and try to keep in touch with.

For me the challenge at the moment is how do we sustain and influence this diversified, multilayered network, and in particular how do we reconnect the Christian components with the non-Christian components. But I think it has a bearing on the preceding discussions in that it suggests that a much more integrated, interlinked, networked approach is needed - at least, this is where 'postmodernism' is leading us. Perhaps in the long run we will have to break apart the close-knit, consolidated traditional church communities so that people can make new connections. Maybe, then, the real problem is not the distance of the pastor from the church but the distance of the church from the world.