If Petra was still around...

[Shell]

Oh, yes, semantics...You did actually say "mention to you" and not "posted" No wonder it seemed longer than a year....

The web site looks good.

[BForm]

Tru, is that really you? I've often wondered what happened to you. I always thought you and I saw things a lot alike. I have posted under both BillF and BForm on this zone. Welcome back, and I will remember you in prayer.

I agree with your comments on churches putting too much emphasis on getting butts in the seat.....at ALL costs....including integrity. I think you'll like this little skit on seeker sensitive pastors:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb9DF16Fx8k

I'm gonna try to find a great quote from Mark Knoll that was written several years ago that really applies to today.

[BForm]

Here it is. I think this describes the modern church pretty well, even though it wasn't primarily Mark Knoll:

"Evangelicalism today in America is basking in the sunlight of ominously hollow success. Evangelical industries of television and radio and publishing and music recordings, as well as hundreds of growing megachurches and some public figures and political movements, give outward impressions of vitality and strength. But David Wells and Os Guinness and others have warned of the hollowing out of evangelicalism from within.

The strong timber of the tree of evangelicalism has historically been the great doctrines of the Bible-

God's glorious perfections,
man's fallen nature,
the wonders of redemptive history,
the magnificent work of redemption in Christ,
the saving and sanctifying work of grace in the soul,
the great mission of the church in conflict with the world, the flesh, and the devil,
the greatness of our hope of everlasting joy at God's right hand.
These unspeakably magnificent things once defined us and were the strong timber and root supporting the fragile leaves and fruit of our religious affections and moral actions. But this is not the case for many churches and denominations and ministries and movements in Evangelicalism today. And that is why the waving leaves of present Evangelical success and the sweet fruit of prosperity are not as promising as we may think. There is a hollowness to this triumph, and the tree is weak even while the leafy branches are waving in the sun.

What is missing is the mind-shaping knowledge and the all-transforming enjoyment of the weight of the glory of God. The glory of God-holy, righteous, all-sovereign, all-wise, all-good-is missing. God rests lightly on the church in America. He is not felt as a weighty concern. David Wells puts it starkly, "It is this God, majestic and holy in his being, this God whose love knows no bounds because his holiness knows no limits, who has disappeared from the modern evangelical world."2 It is an overstatement. But not without warrant."

John Piper