HOUSES THAT CHANGE THE WORLD:
the return of the house churches
By Wolfgang Simson. OM Publishing. 303 pages
ISBN 1 85078 356 X
This is one of those books that will excite and infuriate, challenge and annoy. As with every book, your response obviously depends on where you are coming from in terms of your traditions and assumptions, but one thing is certain; it doesn't sit comfortably with the dominant cultures in contemporary evangelicalism.
At the heart of Simson's basic thesis is that we have entered into a Third Reformation in which God is reforming the very structures of church and returning us to a model that better reflects the New Testament understanding of church. At the beginning of the book he proposes 15 theses that express what he and 'millions of others around the world' believe the Spirit is saying to the church. These include the obvious (Christianity is a way of life, not a series of religious meetings), the interesting (Developing a persecution-proof spirit), the scathing (Out of the hands of bureaucratic clergy and on towards the priesthood of all believers) and the contentious (The church has to become small in order to grow large).
