The Problem with the Western Church

Well, my first real post in my new phpBB-driven journal setup. We'll see how this goes, I suppose. I really like using phpBB as my primary setup since I'm so familiar with how all the code works.

If the Christian life has become the path of ease and fun in the modern West, then corporate worship is the place of increasing entertainment. The problem is not a battle between contemporary Christian worship music and hymns; the problem is that there aren't enough martyrs during the week. If no soldiers are perishing, what you want on Sunday is Bob Hope and some pretty girls, not the army chaplain and a surgeon.

John Piper, The Hidden Smile of God (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 2001), p. 167.

I'm finishing this book today, and it's quite a feast compared to some other books I've read lately. What I love about that statement is that it begins not with the outside form, but an inward change. I am not convinced by any stretch of the imagination that if we change the music in our churches, we'll change people. I am convinced that if we get to the heart of the Gospel, that holy God has had mercy on us, sinners though we are, and made a way for us to drink at the river of His delights in Christ, people will change. As a result, the debate won't merely be about forms of music, but about a heart saturated with God. And in so doing, I can't help but think that people will start becoming uncomfortable with certain types of forms and expressions of sound.

We must start from the inside and work our way out, and no, it's not about God being an "antithesis of the culture." Otherwise, we'll seek to be different just for the heck of it. We'll equate righteousness with some form of action in a negative light, what you don't do.

I'm rambling and I'll add more later. I want to begin the laborious process of converting all my past journal entries to this system. Fun stuff, yo.