"There are at least two reasons that, as Christians, we should establish separate spaces where we can instruct and form each other to be disciples and wise readers. The first reason is pragmatic. That is, the formation needed to develop the character of disciples requires committment and concentration that can best be achieved apart from the routines of everyday life.

The second reason is conceptual and and is related to the fact that Christians are not called to manifest just any sort of character. Their lives are to be a faithful reflection of God's character. Ironically, the nedd for the type of separate space we are talking about is particularly urgent in those places where most people claim to belive in God. This is because of the heightened danger of that belief of becoming acculturated or trivialized. When Christians are the only ones around who procalim allegiance to the God of Jesus Christ, there is little chance of their knowledge of God becoming profaned through exposure to a non-Christian culture. The earliest Christian found themselves in this situation.

But if and when Christians find themselves in a context in which people both claim to know the God of Jesus Christ and attemot to reduce knowledge of God to a series of platitudes ranging from the inane to the incoherent, they must struggle to create a separate spance in which they can teach each other about God apart from the reductionistic practices and profaning tendenies that otherwise dominate their lives. We think the church in the United Staes and in Britain finds itself in this latter situation. But we are also convinced that too few churches have recognized the need for a separate space devoted to forming people's character to be disciples of the Triune God."
--Stephen E Fowl and L Gregory Jones, in Virtues & Practices in the Christian Tradition: Christian Ethics After MacIntyre, ed Nancey Murphy, Brad J Kallenberg & Mark Theissen Nation