This week I'm attending the Willow Creek Leadership Summit via satellite in Atlanta. My parents, brother, and a few friends have made this an annual appointment each August for several years now. While it is true that countless church leadership and pastoral seminars are out there (you could probably attend one after the next all year long), the Summit is about my favorite. There always seems to be a spiritual determination that the local church can and will make a positive difference in transforming and saving the world.

As I think about the heavy challenges facing the Christian church in the days ahead (we are looking at 17.5% church attendance in USA each weekend and heading lower every year) in is important to remember that Jesus believes in his church, he trusts his church, he empowers his church. My own denomination faces a daunting reality: 62 is the mean age of a church member while 36 is the mean age of an American citizen. We are aging. And not doing well with the middle and younger generations. But, again, the Spirit of Christ howls outside the doors, windows and walls of the church, hoping to blow on in.

Whatever the many challenges and opportunities of post-modernism, post-fundamentalism, post-colonialism, and post-traditionalism, the church can be THE agent of change, the agent of love, the agent of healing. The church can be, if it acts in the Way of Jesus, a roaring success against evil in this world.

My prayer is that the church--the local church--will awaken to its noble calling and bang away at the gates of hell.