The study by Willow Creek was been years in the making but only splashed across the blogosphere with its sensational headlines late last year. (Read: "Mind-Blowing!" - "Painful!" - "Revolutionary!") I'm not sure why CT is still doing stories on it at this late date except that their publishing schedule is generally 3-6 months out. (I first heard about the Reveal study in

The editors of Leadership journal have posted another incisive commentary on the state of the Church today in their Out of Ur weblog. It’s about how we (in the Western church) have turned the gospel into a pimping enterprise. There’s nothing really new here, it’s the same complaint Bonhoeffer had about “cheap grace.” But the language is, well, provocative. From church planter Jonathan Yarboro:

Travis Johnson, over at The Edge Church Think Tank, posted an article bemoaning the incredible shrinking church: “The Great Shrinking Church. What Gives?!?!” First, he cites some statistics from The American Church:

That America is becoming an increasingly secular nation is no surprise. That traditional church style seems increasingly irrelevant in the “naughties” and that church numbers are in decline—again—no surprise.

So, taking an unflinching look at the numbers (there was more cited), Travis concludes:

There’s an interesting interview just put out by my employer, Christianity Today International, that I think is worth reading. It’s an interview with Dallas Willard and Richard J. Foster conducted by Christianity Today associate editor Agnieszka Tennant: “The Making of the Christian: Richard J. Foster and Dallas Willard on the difference between discipleship and spiritual formation.”

I love this analyses by Dallas Willard regarding the current emptiness of the word “discipleship:”