from the Willow Creek Leadership Summit: Tim Keller, senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan and author of several insightful books, including The Reason for God. Our sister publication Christianity Today recently published a cover story on Keller.

The thing that shocks us as ministers is the spiritual deadness in our congregations. Few people do most of the work. On top of that, there's turf-consciousness, anger, pride. So we ministers are suckers for anything that says, "This is the key to spiritual vitality." So, with fear and trembling, I want to give: (a) a diagnosis for what that spiritual deadness is, and (b) a prescription that is not too programmatic or too vague. To see what the old-timers call "revival" and the newcomers call "renewal."

The Diagnosis

The Parable of the Prodigal Son was not really written to younger brother types; it's written to the older brother types (the religious leaders and Pharisees who criticize Jesus for associating with, and eating ...