The weekly ‘dose of sermon’ habit as a mainstay of faith I think is one of the practices that has done the most damage to discipleship and mission in the church in the last 400 years, creating a dependency on someone else’s theological reflections – instead of our own communal wrestle, creating a hierarchy of spirituality, when we should be watching and listening to our children, and the prophets amongst us, who are most likely the manic depressive, the homeless and the person washing the dishes. We have created a false sense of ‘we need to grow spiritually’ – guilting us into attendance – except that when we realise that even if we attend 100% or 200% (going twice a week!) we actually don’t ‘grow’ any more, we get disillusioned, and so attend less. Attendance – surely – is about expressing our commitment to the other, not about ‘topping ourselves up’ (which seems anti-kenotic and greedy, really). While-ever church seems to be about ‘what happens at the front’ and not about disciples discipling each other, and sharing the stories of God in our lives and doing the work of praying for the world God loves, attendance will remain frequently uncompelling.