The Church seems to have lost heart somewhat, has allowed
the old assurance and enthusiasm to cool below the temperature
at which big things get done, is always whimpering and
complaining about something, has developed a foolish trick of
gathering into corners in discouraged groups and bleating
disconsolately that God seems to be strangely little in our
day, the very mood that so maddened the Hebrew prophets that
they itched to lay violent hands upon their countrymen, and
literally shake it out of them. We Church people have become
so prone to loud and abusive self-depreciation that the thing
amounts to a disease... and though these doleful spirits are
not altogether serious, the world is listening, and takes us,
not unnaturally, at our own dismal and unflattering valuation.
A. J. Gossip, The Galilean Accent
tags: Church Church × Evangelism Evangelism ×