I am considering the importance of 'security'. On the cusp of a moment of change and new life, I think about the need to be a disciple, with the costliness that Bonhoeffer observed to be the quality of this relationship with Christ and each other. My part of the emergent church has often talked about the need to embrace a form of insecurity, indeed I have felt this to be an important challenge to us as followers of Jesus. Yet I am also aware that Jesus wanted to gather his people together like a mother hen. I sense that the church without this commitment to a common care in the power of the holy spirit is not so loving. One of the problems lies in the conflict between innovation and creativity on the one hand (which is human endeavour, however, blessed), and a basic need for fellowship with one another and God, on the other. Of course these two things need not be in conflict. I just sense that the encounter between church and postmodern culture (postmodern church?) is something that needs to be reflected on, that a measured view of the benefit of postmodern cultural sensibility would say that we need to continue to meet regularly to worship, praise and encourage one another to carry the cross we have been given. That cross is a paradoxical burden of suffering that blesses and frees from sin. The significance accorded to culture is influenced by a renewed theological interest in creation. However, it needs to be recalled that creation is what God makes/has made; culture is what human beings make/have made. The radical difference between the church and the wider culture should lie in the practices of a common life that is premised on the saving and creating grace of God. Creativity and innovation can be amazing signs of the life of God, but they are not as important as meeting often, praying all the time and praising God in suffering and joy (together).