Organic / Missional / Simple / Emerging Church

Over the last couple of months I've been blown away with something that has just simply struck a chord with me.
It started with picking up a book of my brother's whilst he was moving house - Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola. Now I've read something along the same lines before (Houses that change the World by Wolfgang Simson) but this book certainly smacked me in the face and made me wake up and smell the coffee.
For a long time now I've wondered why I felt so stifled by the structures of the traditional church, why I was so uncomfortable with  the performance/spectator based Sunday morning services.  This book looks into the origins of traditional church practices and how many of them have their origins in pagan rituals and not in the New Testament.  In fact many of the churches traditions stem from Constantine and his creation of "Christendom".
"In AD 312, Constantine became caesar of the Western Empire.  By 324, he became emperor of the entire Roman Empire.  Shortly afterward, he began ordering the construction of church buildings.  He did so to promote the popularity and acceptance of Christianity.  If the Christians had their own sacred buildings - as did the Jews and the pagans - their faith would be regarded as legitimate.  It is important to understand Constantine's mind-set - for it explains why he was so enthusiastic about the establishment of church buildings.  Constantine's thinking was dominated by superstition and pagan magic.  Even after he became emporer, he allowed the old pagan institutions to remain as they were.
Following his conversion to Christianity, Constantine never abandoned sun worship.  He kept the sun on his coins.  And he set up a statue of the sun god that bore his own image in the Forum of Constantinople (his new capital).  Constantine also built a statue of the mother-goddess Cybele (though he kept her in a posture of Christian prayer)....
In AD 321, Constantine decreed that Sunday would be a day of rest - a legal holiday.  It appears that Constantine's intention in doing this was to honour the god Mithras, the Unconquered Sun.  (He described Sunday as "the day of the sun")  Further demonstrating Constantine's affinity with sun worship, excavations of St Peter's in Rome uncovered a mosaic of Christ as the Unconquered Sun....
When Constantine dedicated Constantinople as his new capital he adorned it with treasures taken from heathen temples.  And he used pagan magic formulas to protect crops and heal diseases." (Pagan Christianity, p18-20, F. Viola).

Following this book I was inspired to read further into this and read other books by Frank Viola - Reimagining Church, The Untold Story of the New Testament, Finding Organic Church, From Eternity to Here and Jesus: A Theography.  This also lead me to read others authors along the same lines like Neil Cole's Organic Church: Growing Faith where Life Happens, and Church 3.0 and Alan Hirsch's The Forgotten Ways.
Frank Viola's Reimagining Church picks you up off the floor where Pagan Christianity leaves you. In that where one book helps strip away the dross of religion and ritual the latter helps you to take a fresh look at the way the first century church met and planted churches, and the way Jesus made disciples.
I know the Organic church way is fraught with as many difficulties as blessings, and it's definitely not the "easy" way to do church, but I'm sure it's worth the cost to have a true experience of how Jesus meant ekklesia to meet.

I currently attend a lively contemporary church with a pentecostal background but now independent. But I want my children to live by Divine life, by the indwelling Christ. How can they experience this when the church we attend is all about performance and is attractional and seeker-sensitive.
At the same time though I don't want to isolate our children from making sound Christian friendships with children their own age. The youth programme at church is excellent and more missionally geared than the church itself. It does more things in the community and encourages greater impact in their school lives.
We decided that we would have the best of both worlds and remain at the church but hold our own "organic" style meetings in our own home. We break bread as part of a meal and then discuss scripture together and  pray. And sometimes we sing.
We're currently going through the Seven Signs of John. Subsequently we have gained a new recruit as we invited Adam's sister to meet with us. She is a recovering addict who after hitting rock bottom has come back to God. She struggles with depression and so struggles getting up to attend a Sunday morning service. She tried going with us to the church we attend but it didn't work out.
She now comes to our Weds evening meetings and has really benefitted from it. In fact, with the meeting being decentralised and laid back with opportunities for all to contribute,she has been an inspiration to us and has blessed us in return.