main goal is to build a big crowd, and community is tacked onto the bargain (usually in the form of a small group), the way that medical benefits and vacation days are tacked onto a job offer. But while crowds come and go, true and enduring Christian community is a foretaste of heaven, the essence of the discipleship, the enduring witness to an unbelieving world, and an absolute necessity for human transformation. Even more subtly, but importantly, there is an enduring difference between a collective