Pastors

Suburbia: the push-button Zion of those who have made it and therefore have it made. There, amid the water sprinkling systems and lava rock landscapes, rises the new Eden with little need for God: Paradise Found, where churches ulcerate themselves trying to sell self-denial to the pampered.

Can the urgency of the Cross ever be made real to those who cocoon in front of an entertainment center and insist on defining hell as dandelions and heaven as the proper side of town?

Two women from our church once made a church visitation call to a new suburbanite. They were fearful but brave and wanted to extend the gospel to someone in need of Christ. They were convinced their "prayed up" status would deliver them from the mouth of the lion. They walked up to a door, rang the Westminster chime doorbell, and waited beneath a plywood-goose wreath that said WELCOME. It seemed a good omen. But all too soon they were met by a swaggering young muscle man-body by Nautilus-clutching a can of beer in one hand ...

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