We live in a time of chasms.
They are everywhere—political, cultural, racial, economic, spiritual. They run between neighbors, families, churches, and even within the body of Christ itself. Increasingly, we encounter one another not as fellow travelers but as strangers standing on opposite sides of widening divides.
Most of us know the feeling intimately. We look at someone, perhaps a friend, a brother or sister in Christian fellowship, or even someone who has hurt or betrayed us, and quietly conclude: The distance between us is too great. Sometimes we say it out loud. More often, we simply feel it. They’re entrenched. I’m convinced I’m right. There’s no way across this.
This isn’t new to human experience. What is new is how universal the resignation has become. Everywhere we look, everyone seems to be saying the same thing: The chasm is uncrossable.
So what do we do with that? Do we agree to disagree and walk away? Do we allow the lines that divide us to keep hardening until each of us stands isolated on our own lonely island of certainty—surrounded by gaps no one dares to cross?
I don’t think that’s what we’re called to.
A Distinct People—and a Dangerous Temptation
Christians often speak, rightly, of the call to being a distinct people. Scripture calls us a “chosen generation… a holy nation… a peculiar people.” We are not meant to be shaped by the world’s values or absorbed into its patterns. There is something precious and necessary, about that distinction.
But distinction carries a danger.
If we’re not careful, what God intends as light can become an impassable wall. What is meant to mark us as belonging to Jesus can quietly mark us as unreachable.
Many people look at committed Christian communities and admire what they see. They recognize something beautiful, something ordered, something full of meaning. And yet their internal response often sounds like this: I could never be one of those people. They’re so different. They claim a special relationship with God. That kind of life isn’t for someone like me.
It’s the same way people sometimes look at monks or nuns—figures of devotion admired from a distance but assumed to belong to a category entirely separate from “normal” people.
The truth, of course, is far simpler and far more humbling: we are not special in ourselves. We are not stronger, better, or more disciplined. We are simply people who have been met by grace and changed by love into something we never thought we could be.
Which raises a pressing question for our moment: How do we reach those who believe the life of faith is beautiful—but impossible for them?
A Ministry of Reconciliation
The apostle Paul writes that God “has given to us the ministry of reconciliation.” That phrase is often read narrowly, as though it refers only to bringing individuals into right relationship with God. But reconciliation is never abstract. It is lived out in real relationships, real tensions, real fractures between people.
Jesus called peacemakers the children of God. Paul urged believers to “endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” and, as far as it depends on us, to live peaceably with all.
In other words, the calling is not merely to hold truth, but to carry it across distance. To do the hard, humble work of closing gaps rather than explaining why they cannot be closed.
Which brings me to a story that has stayed with me for years.
How a Bridge Begins
In the 1840s, two nations were separated by a great and turbulent gorge at Niagara Falls. The river was nearly eight hundred feet across—too wide to row, too wild to cross by conventional means. Yet there was a vision to build a bridge.
The question was simple: How do you get the first line across?
An engineer named Charles Ellet Jr. proposed an unusual solution. Rather than attempting something massive and immediate, he offered a small challenge: whoever could get the first thread across the gorge would win.
A young boy named Homan Walsh took up the challenge by flying a kite.
Carried by the wind, the kite crossed the chasm, trailing behind it a single fragile string. That string was then used to pull a stronger line. The stronger line pulled a rope. The rope pulled a wire. The wire pulled a cable. And eventually, cables strong enough to support a bridge capable of carrying trains stretched across what had once been impossible.
The bridge did not begin with steel.
It began with a thread.
The Courage to Send Up a Kite
I often return to that image when I think about our current moment.
Who among us is willing to send up the first kite?
Not a concession of truth. Not a surrender of conviction. But a surrender of self—of pride, fear, and the need to be proven right before being willing to love.
It’s tempting to assume that reaching across a divide means giving something up that we cannot afford to lose. But more often than not, what’s required is far simpler and far harder: humility. A willingness to begin small. A readiness to trust that the wind of grace may carry what we cannot.
Common ground does exist. Sometimes it’s our shared humanity. Sometimes it’s our love for our children. Sometimes it’s something as simple and unadorned as the old confession many of us learned as children: Jesus loves me, this I know.
A thread is enough—if someone is willing to send it.
There’s an old song by Phillips, Craig & Dean that captures this spirit beautifully: “Let’s build a bridge of love together.” It’s a simple line, but it carries profound truth. Bridges are not built by shouting across rivers. They are built by reaching, by risking, by trusting that someone on the other side might be willing to grab hold.
A Question Worth Pondering
So here is the challenge I find myself returning to again and again:
Who will you cross the chasm for?
Who will you reach toward in this next season?
Who will you carry the grace you’ve received across to?
Who might be waiting—not for a perfect argument, but for the first thread of love strong enough to begin something new?
Every bridge begins the same way: with one step, one gesture, one fragile line sent into the unknown.
Perhaps it’s time, once again, to send up the kite—and trust the wind of The Spirit of Grace to do the rest.
Dear Lisa,
Thank you for your respectful, thoughtful, and well-considered questions. I will attempt to answer them as succinctly and carefully as I can.
You are right in observing that authentic, strong Christian communities are rare. But that rarity must not lead us to believe that such communities are impossible—only that, like the treasure hidden in the field, they require a willingness to give all in order to see them realized in our experience.
Jesus did say that narrow is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to life, and few there are who find it. That does not mean the way is closed or reserved for a select few, only that it must be chosen. Not everyone finds that narrow way amenable to their preferences or comforts.
I want to be careful here. I hesitate to speak in sweeping generalities, because I believe there are millions of sincere Christian brothers and sisters who genuinely seek to live lives of faith that lead them to our Lord. When I speak of general patterns, I am not speaking against people themselves, but rather about the perspectives and beliefs that shape how people live and act—sometimes unknowingly or in good faith.
One helpful distinction I’ve found is the difference between shared belief and shared life. We often assume belief is merely a mental exercise—a theoretical acceptance of certain propositions. But true belief, in the biblical sense, is conviction born of revelation, and it expresses itself in the life we live. When belief is real, it does not remain private; it becomes embodied. If we truly share belief, we will eventually share life.
Before going further, let me say plainly: every question you raised is, at different stages of the Christian walk, a critical and necessary question. I do believe Christians must honestly confront the culture of comfort and ease that makes sacrifice feel distasteful. We live in a time when sacrifice is rarely called for. The unspoken question often becomes: Why should I sacrifice my comfort for the good of a community?
I won’t point fingers—that isn’t my purpose—but this tension between personal comfort and sacrificial life together is a foundational struggle. Over the years, I’ve had dear Christians consult with me about community, and many of their questions, understandably, center on individual wants rather than what is good for the whole. As believers, we must be willing to set aside personal preference and seek the will of our Heavenly Father, whom I believe is the Head of the Body—the Church—whose feet are still walking on the earth.
You also raised the question of individualism versus community—what you called the difference between “me” and “we.” That is an essential observation. Our modern world elevates radical individualism above almost anything that calls a person into a whole greater than themselves. This, too, makes Christian community feel unrealistic or even threatening.
And then there is the question of Christ as center versus Christ as an add-on. My dad used to refer to this as “Christ as a spare tire”—someone we carry along to help us when things go wrong, rather than the One we obey and order our lives around. Jesus said plainly that if we love Him, we will keep His commandments. Scripture also tells us that where brothers dwell together in unity, God commands the blessing. But if we are unwilling to pursue the unity Jesus prayed would testify that He was sent by the Father, how can we expect to receive the grace that brings such unity about?
To summarize plainly: strong Christian community is rare not because it is mysterious or unattainable, but because it requires a depth of shared life, sacrifice, and surrender that our culture resists.
And yet, I want to say this with absolute conviction: authentic Christian community is accessible, available, and possible for all who love it, who seek it, and who are willing to treasure it above their chief joy. When we seek Christ’s Body—His Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven—and seek it above all else, we will find it.
Every time I receive words or questions like yours, my heart leaps and my eyes fill with tears, because I am reminded that there are honest, sincere, faithful brothers and sisters who long to see the Body of Christ made visible on the earth. Your questions reflect that longing.
So yes—these are excellent questions, and they must be prayerfully and honestly examined by every Christian who claims to desire community. Those who are willing to lose their lives into the sacrifice of Jesus, in order to be raised with Him, are the people through whom God will build visible, beautiful, strong communities. And those communities will stand as a testimony to the world that Jesus truly came from above, and that these are indeed His disciples.
Thank you for your heart, for your sincerity, and for your desire to see the Kingdom of God expanded on the earth. May God bring before your eyes the reality of what you hold in your heart. May He graft you into the kind of community you are seeking, and may He answer the prayers and desires of your heart.
Thank you for sending up a kite.
And may we continue to draw stronger and stronger threads—strings, ropes, and cables—across the chasms between us, until bridges are built that can carry the weight of many.
I’ve now shared this article in spoken form on video.
Watch here:
https://youtu.be/mJdlCj-0TKU?si=1RDZZdku4RUQjHRB