From TheHeresy.com:

Most ministry that occurs in a church is through a church program. In most church programs a few individuals conduct ministry (usually teaching or preaching) to a large group of people. There is certainly nothing wrong with this. However when almost all ministry follows this pattern we have a problem. We become insulated from each other. Even as someone who has taught and preached I can tell you it is a lot easier to preach to crowd than it is to get in to the nitty gritty details of someone’s life. It is also much easier to sit in a crowd and listen to someone talk than it is to open your life up to others.

I think this is the essential difference between simple churches and regular churches. They shift the emphasis away from centralized ministry and become ministers. They open up their lives, their homes and even their fridges to the purposes of God. There is a huge cost to this.

HT: Simplechurch UK