I'm half way through Wolfgang Simson's "Houses that change the world" and I still don't think I fully grasp what he's suggesting, but I love his writing. Some exerpts,The church I dream of is like a spiritual extended family - organic, not organized, relational, not formal. It has a persecution-proof structure. It matures under tears, multiples under pressure, breathes under water, grows under the carpet; it flourishes in the desert, sees in the dark and thrives in the midst of chaos.
Biblical Christianity is a healthy threat to pagan godlessness and sinfulness, a world overcome by greed, materialism, jealousy and any amount of demonic standards of ethics, sex, money, and power. Contemporary Christianity in many countries is simply too harmless and polite to be worth persecuting.
In the New Testament times... Every Christian was, by definition, a candidate for death. If one wanted a soft life, or wanted to get ahead in respectable circles, one simply did not become a Christian. when people became Christians they were 'converted to marginality'. Rather than being a part of the main social establishment they were part of a counter-culture, an anti-society, secret and mysterious to many, loyal to 'another king', a distinctively different spiritual tribe.
Simson also includes a statement from Art Katz, a Messianic Jew on how true community starts, where individualism ends:
Community life pulverizes your old ego in the power of the Spirit of God, and rescues you from just living a miserable private life, where after loving each other during a one-hour worship service a week we rush home to water our flowers, sit on our porch, eat our individual meals and wash our car. We need to start to function as part of the fellowship of the redeemed. As the redeemed, we do not go home after a service, we are at home with each other.Amazing.
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