wolfgang simson from "houses that change the world" wolfgang simson from "houses that change the world"

"The image of much contemporary christianity could be summarized as holy people coming regularly to a holy place on a holy day at a holy hour to participate in a holy ritual led by a holy man dressed in holy clothes for a holy fee. Since this regular performance-oriented enterprise called 'worship service' requires a lot of organizational talent and administrative bureaucracy, formalized and institutionalized patterns developed quickly into rigid traditions. Statistically, a traditional one or two hour 'worship service' is very resource hungry but produces very little fruit in terms of discipling people, i.e. in changing their lives. Economically, it is a 'high input, low output' structure. Traditionally, the desire to worship 'in the right way' has led to much deominationalism, confessionalism and nominalism. This not only ignores the fact that Christians are called to worship 'in spirit and in truth', rather than in cathedrals holding songbooks. It also ignores the fact that mots of life is informal, and so too is Christianity as 'the Way of Life'. Do we need to change from being powerful actors and start acting powerfully?"