The quote above came in an email this week from a church that we had been attending on and off in between various church jobs. I have been thinking about this statement this week quite a bit. Honestly, I could not have said it better. The statement is true, and my increasing angst and fear for the church in America is rooted in the decisions we are making–that we are allowing the culture to shape us more than we shape the culture. We are being transformed by the world instead of transforming it. Evangelism is a dirty word; or at best its a religious word for marketing. Certainly God continues to reveal himself to us, and as we discern that (and test it against scripture) things do and will change, however we have completely lost touch with our source. Its unfortunate. It will be our death and while the church will never die, many of our churches and denominations as we know them now will. They are already on the path, and in many cases we can only hope that it does not change instead of continuing to move down the slippery slope. We have lost our center, our source; The Christ. My soul aches, but there are still some that want to move forward creatively and reach our culture while renewing our focus on Christ; the foundation of our faith.