OK, so I have been thinking about what it means to 'do Church'. Right now I am reading a very interesting book, and thought I would pass along this quote for you all to comment on!

'The image of much contemporary Christianity could be summarized as holy people coming regularly to a holy place on a holy ay 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 denominationalism, 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 most 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?'

-- From 'Houses That Change the World' by Wolfgang Simpson