Sublime

This is a key problem. As Guinness identifies, many of our churches have bought into the modern American consumer mindset in which we understand ourselves primarily as consumers and our churches as service-providers.

This pastor loved his church. He didn’t yet love his city enough to upset his church.

This is the pastoral posture we are exhorted to in 1 Peter 5:3: “not domineering.” There are lots of ways pastors become domineering over those in their charge, but the first step is usually to remove oneself more and more from them. When the local church body stops being “the flock of God that is among you,” it becomes much easier to treat them as

has Reformed theology become just one more tool for coping with our secular age?

The Stations, Past and Present

We need the gospel that is in our brothers, and they need the gospel that is in us. So accountability must ask the hard questions, but it must do so as if Jesus were real. Because he is. And since Jesus is real, his personality and his judgments should shape the personality and judgments of accountability groups. Our hearts should not be shrunken

What he notices, and what pleases him, is our churches’ passion for Christ crucified. But down here on earth, among people, it’s often a different story. People’s opinions of us gravitate toward two opposite extremes. And the clearer our churches are about Christ, the more polarizing we will be.