The race of faith is a marathon. Some compete, some excell, some just plan on finishing, and others drop out. It is commendable to set the bar high, to finish well.
Running To Win The Prize
September 16, 2010
Brett McCracken notes that concern over "twenty-somethings" leaving churchgoing behind has elevated "relevancy" to be the ultimate consideration. He writes....
Increasingly, the "plan" has taken the form of a total image overhaul, where efforts are made to rebrand Christianity as hip, countercultural, relevant. As a result, in the early 2000s, we got something called "the emerging church"—a sort of postmodern stab at an evangelical reform movement. Perhaps because it was too "let's rethink everything" radical, it fizzled quickly. But the impulse behind it—to rehabilitate Christianity's image and make it "cool"—remains.
From the Orange County Register dated September 14, 2010....
ANAHEIM – Apparently holding services in a punk rock nightclub every weekend wasn't quite cool enough for City Church. So, to mark its first birthday, the budding Anaheim congregation Sunday proposed following its regular rock 'n' roll revival with a "radical commitment" – tattoos of various versions of the church logo.
Ouch....
C. H. Spurgeon asked his congregation this question 135 years ago....
Where are the saints now? We have a superabundance of professors (those who claim to follow Christ) but where are the truly eminent Christians?
I believe that the strength of the church lies in that inner circle of champions which is composed of the thoroughly consecrated, the men who are favored of the Lord.
Holy Bernard was the light of his age, and passing on from age to age we see men who blazed with the light of God; but we ought each one of us to seek to be saints in the highest sense of the word.
We must aim at being the holiest of men and women. Let it be ours to be like the mountain-tops that catch the first beams of the raising sun, and reflect the light upon the lowlands.