Manifesto
Several months ago, pazuzuzu asked me to clarify my stance on why I believe the mainstream Christian Church is off-target in a lot of its activities. So this is it: the big computersherpa manifesto post. Non-Christians may not be interested in what I have to say here. Apologies to the folks on Myst Blogs who are about to be buried by a wall of text. 
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The Bible teaches that there is one core drama unfolding in this world--and it isn't a struggle of good against evil (that was eternally settled at the cross, though it continues temporally). The drama we live in is about the eternal gather; the eternal destiny of Earth's multitudes in choosing not between good and evil or wisdom and folly, but between choosing God promotion versus self promotion.
Why can't it be both? The best stories are multithreaded. I'd expect that both of those threads and more are vitally important to the Story.
Also, I'm certainly not disputing that we're saved by grace, through faith. The heroics that we're called to would occur after salvation and are certainly not a prerequisite for entering Heaven. Part of my complaint, however, is that the Church is going all-out at obtaining new converts but doesn't have a solid plan for really helping the ones it has. The result is large congregations who aren't much different from the way they were pre-conversion. The outside world looks at that and isn't impressed by it. Doing great things should naturally attract admirers and thus bring the Church more converts. The way the Church does it now puts the cart before the horse.
I feel that it's not our job to convert people--it's God's. Christians must be ready to witness at all times, but most people (in civilized countries, anyway) aren't interested in being preached to.
Consider this: Every single person in the United States can hear the Gospel if they want to. There are churches in every town and several in every city. All a person has to do is walk through the doors and they can most assuredly hear the Good News from someone. But there's precious little reason to do so, because everyone already has. What we need to do is make people want to come in and ask because they're amazed at what a difference the Church makes.
The situation is much different overseas. In places such as Africa and Siberia, the Church has much less extensive coverage, and missionaries are needed to plant churches, grow them to maturity, and give them the knowledge and tools they need to become self-sustaining and self-propagating. I consider foreign missionaries to be the foremost heroes of the Church, and I think that if they were asked many Christians would agree. We need more heroes like that, but in a different direction. Preaching the Gospel isn't the only way to win people's hearts. We need to make people come to us.
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