Boot Camp vs. Nursing Homes

Eric Ludy's latest sermon was on the evil of the artistic. As much as I enjoy his sermons, I groaned a little bit when I realized what was coming.
He was going to tell me why what most churches are doing today is wrong.

In his words (primarily at least) he lays it out as they have begun to value the artistic over the truth. Drawing people in with games, clever gimmicks, and stuff has become more valuable than the truth we are commissioned to be sharing.

It's why my old church bowled turkeys and showed Toy Story to the kids. It's why John Hagee at Cornerstone church hired the Sea World and Six Flags folks to put on their Christmas drama. It's why missionaries throw cammo bags and t/shirts into the crowds and pastors dutifully spend Gods worship time honoring veterans and parents and softball teams and their country.

It makes me incredibly sad. I'm tired of non-Christian churches. I'm tired of the fact that in a city with hundreds (probably thousands) of churches, I can't seem to find one that preaches the true gospel and backs it up with their lives. I'm tired of the fact that it feels like Christianity has lost. Christian doesn't mean Christian any more. It means something entirely different and foolish, and deadly.

And I'm tired of talking about how that is what the church is.

Which is why I groaned a bit to realize that's what Ludy would be preaching on Sunday.

In 102 days, Lord Willing, I'm moving across states to join a church that says "God will pull you out of the concentration camp, put you into boot camp, so He can send you back into the concentration camp so you can get others out."
I'm ready for boot camp. I'm ready to be pushed and challenged beyond what I am in Christ right now.
I'm ready to not just talk about Christianity but with a group of believers begin living it out in an even broader scope that I am now.

I want a boot camp life - not a spiritual nursing home where the wounded and sick doze their lives away well medicated with biblical sound bites.