Think of Doctors Without Borders. Think of the pro-Maori movement in New Zealand. Think of the G-8. Think of the Sudanese civil war. Think of Internet commerce.
Groups are all the time being born and evolving and dying.
They jostle one another constantly, and yet somehow things seem to get done. It is the same way in the church. The vision many in the church today seem to have for working together across congregational and denominational borders is like postmodern society s tendency to combine forces, to cooperate rather than to compete, to think globally. Meanwhile, the small-group movement is one example in the church today of how we are reflecting society s tendency to get small, to hook up, to act locally. It all bears more resemblance to the feudal model of the premodern era than it does to either the imperial model of the classical era or the nation-state model of the modern era.