THE 25TH anniversary of 'Vineyard' was a good opportunity to reflect on my years in Christian community and consider the many changes and developments during that time.

The house has always carried a strong family identity. It's also had a ministry of serving the 'heartlands' of the church, with many of us involved in church business and administration. There's always been a pioneering dimension, too, most recently in Chester and North Wales.

The original Vineyard team was made up of two married couples and their children, five single men and five single women. The three-storey house had once been a farmhouse and, together with the bungalow in the garden, holds up to 30 people. During the first ten years, we were pretty full - as fast as people moved on, generally to pioneer new houses, their places were taken by others. By our tenth anniversary I was the only one of the original team left! Since then, our growth has been in non-residents, who look to Vineyard as their pastoral household: numbers in the house have steadily reduced to one third of capacity.

As an idealist by nature, I've had to face a paradox: community is not a comfortable place for idealists but you can only keep going in community if you have idealism.

On the one hand, you'll only cope if you move into community prepared to find that a lot of your ideals about community, about other people and - worst of all - about yourself, are challenged by what happens when you get there.

On the other hand, unless you manage to hang onto your vision in the midst of disappointments, you won't survive. There has to be some sense of God's presence and God's purpose for it all. Community can't be an end in itself.

When I first came, I'd have said, "Community's purpose is to be different from the world, as a refuge from worldly society."

I'd be inclined, now, to change the emphasis and say "Community is a base from which we can show the love of Christ to the world. A base which needs to be unworldly itself, but which enables us to engage with, rather than retreat from, the world and its people."

If you hear someone saying, 'But when I joined community, it wasn't like this' you are listening to someone trying to fossilise God. When you join community you're joining something that is connected with God and moves on with God's word to His Church.

When I first came, the vision for Jesus Army was ten years away and the vision for Jesus Centres was twenty years away. A community must never be static.