Below is a link to an excellent piece from the Friday, September 15th edition of The Wall Street Journal.
Why go to a church that is attempting to imitate the culture? Go right to the real stuff. The church never could compete when she lost her vision and attempted to become less like Israel and more like Egypt. God is calling to Himself a peculiar people, and when they've lost their peculiarness - when the salt has lost its ability to season or preserve - it's ready to be thrown out.
Matthew 5:13
"You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men."
The piece below is one of the more brilliant things I've seen in quite some time.
R.J.
TV's Healing Powers
by Philip Kevin Goff
[excerpt]
If American culture has moved toward evangelicals' practice of making the personal public, so religion has moved in the direction of the broader culture. The way worship is conducted in growing numbers of evangelical congregations now replicates what once was confined to the TV screen. Sitting in your living room, you may feel just as close to the pastor as you would at the 5,000-person megachurch down the street. Unless you join one of the megachurch's cell groups, these institutions can be as impersonal as mass media. Moreover, a visit to your local megachurch - including Starbuck's coffee, entertaining music and drama, and a short talk that seems less like a sermon than an inspiring self-help lesson - will not seem much different than a trip to the mall.