3/28/2004 02:29:00 AM

This. All actionable comments appreciated:

...We believe that there is an inherent risk in the theologies and ecclesiologies that have come to dominate the memory of the man Jesus. We envision a direct, participatory spirituality whose modalities rest more in the patterns of day-to-day life than in the cycles of attendance and consumption that have come to define the dominant brands soliciting patronage in the name of Christ.

We believe that the fattened, current systems of empowered Christianity are vulnerable to one thing: less. These systems are built on the presumption that people will always want more. The organizational master plans presume this. The staffing levels, the building projects, the criteria of success all circumambulate the idol of more. These systems are unable to cope with less: people who find community in the normal connections of their daily lives rather than purpose-driven programs with a community label; those not interested in the system's alternatives to Disneyland and MTV, who don't need another Jesus-coloring-book Adult Sunday School class or desire to contribute to the capital stewardship drive to build the new wing.

Less brings with it the spectre of irrelevance. That gnawing sense that there may in fact be little purpose now in the things that have passed as Church....