I want the church to be the church. I want it to embody a vibrant spirituality. I want the church to be an alternative to postmodern culture, not a mere echo of it. I want a church that is bold to be different and unafraid to be faithful, a church that is interested in something better than using slick marketing techniques to swell the numbers of warm bodies occupying sanctuaries, a church that reflects an integral and undiminished confidence in power of God's Word, a church that can find in the midst of our present cultural breakdown the opportunity to be God's people in a world that has abandoned God.
- David Wells (God in the Wasteland, p. 214)
I have been challenged by this book and two others. I challenge others to review God in the Wasteland, Resident Aliens by Stanley Hauerwas, and Transformed Thinking by Edward Curtis. I have read these books over the last three weeks and I'm convinced that the church in the west has chosen the wrong pill (Matrix reference). We have lost our voice in society and in our scramble to be noticed and significant we may have sold ourselves to culture – not understanding that none of it is true. This in contrast to what God has called us to, that is, providing a radical alternative to the world. He is the true and faithful and that's what he calls us to.
