I'm reading a lot of books right now- many of them I've read before. I received an email with some great questions about one of my previous posts and putting my thoughts together to respond on my blog.
So this morning I was reading this book I got for my birthday last year called ENOUGH: Contentment in an Age of Excess. It's really good.

I am going to post something I read (pg. 61)- it's a harsh reality of the American church.

You spend too much time thinking about and wishing for the end of the world. Why are you so anxious to bring about God's judgment? And what kinds of people you have become, thinking the world will end tomorrow?
In your arrogance and laziness you have forgotten why I have placed you here. You have endless conferences and seminars on "how to do church," but you have forgotten to be the church, a people who live as an alternative community, pointing all people toward me through loving service
You grown rich exploiting the poor. You bring a tiny pittance of that money back to me and say, "God, you have been so good to us." But your money smells like crap in my nostrils. It sickens me and I don't want it. Give it back to the poor from which it came.
You grow more food than you need by destroying the very soil I gave you to tend. You sit down to a sumptuous buffet and say, "Look how God has blessed us." I have not blessed you. I have left you to your own destruction.
There will come a day when the womb of the earth will no longer produce and the poor will rise up and pledge never to sew a cheap garment again. You will grow hungry and your shopping malls will close. Then you will turn to me and cry, "God, why you have you rejected us?" And I will say, "I have not rejected you. I have been here all along, waiting for you all along."
So turn your face toward me now. Seek after me. Live out my commands. Do you want to be people after my own heart? Then care for the poor, the needy, the marginalized, those for whom my heart beats loudly. Cease your endless Bible studies, searching for the answer to righteous living. Commit yourselves to following what I already told you to do. Don't believe you are pursing me if you are not seeking to do justice.
Care for the planet. .You have become so worried about who might advocate this course of action that you forgot it was one of my first commandments to you. Tend well what I have give you.
Seek the welfare of your community. As people in exile, your future and the future of the planet you live are one and the same. So make your world more whole, that you might be more holy.
And live in love. I had hoped that you'd get that message when my Son joined humanity and demonstrated sacrificial love in action. But you are so worried about his return that you forgot why he came. Be a people shaped by the model of Jesus, not just the prospect of escaping the world I have asked you to help heal.