As unsexy as our individual ethics may sound compared to the adventures that await on the mission field, the fact is, our own wicked heart is the first frontier of any mission.

God’s covenant faithfulness to his people, even when the relationship is difficult and embarrassing, should be instructive to us. A healthy relationship with the local church is like a healthy marriage: it only works when grounded in selfless commitment and a nonconsumerist covenant.

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.8

There is no getting around the fact that a Christian community is one that suffers. The pioneer of our faith suffered, the main symbol of our tradition is one of agony and death, and it’s no use trying to remove the cruciform marks from the hands and feet of the church. The mark of the gospel is not health and wealth, but nails and blood.13

uncomfortable church is what grows and stretches and builds the body of Christ to be effective in the world. It may be seeker-unfriendly, but it will be friendlier to seekers in the long run because it will actually transform them.

By focusing on brokenness as proof of our “realness,” have we made authenticity a higher calling than holiness?

Joshua Ryan Butler puts it, “Our world is desperately in need of love that is more than comfort; we need love that is also a confrontation.”12

churches ought to embrace, rather than avoid, the uncomfortable aspects of Christianity if they are to thrive in the twenty-first century.

Everyone is born with bents toward certain sins, including sexual sins. Whether this is nature or nurture, it matters not.