A Powerful Church?

My critique is not of the Faith, but our version of it. We, with "our" faith, have lost our saltiness, and so, our Lord said, we are fit for nothing and should be thrown out, to be trampled underfoot by men (Matthew 5: 13). And to a degree, we have been trampled. We complain about this in mind that secular humanists and "the Liberal media" are making us victims and treating us unfairly - but fail to realise that our lack of respect merely affirms the truth of Jesus Christ's words! We deserve to be trampled when we claim of faith of such power and show so little of it in our lives.
(Yes, I am aware of "power evangelism," "power encounters," "laughing revivals," and the rest. They have their place, but isn't the power we really long to see not just a matter of shaking of a person’s limbs or emotions or vocal apparatus but rather the power to shake our selfishness, pettiness, prejudice, laziness, and fear? I am waiting for a power encounter the results not just in tongues-speaking but in sustained tithing, not just in hankering for physical healing but in sustained effort for racial healing, not just in the emotional manifestations but in better art and better ecology and more neighbourly people. That would be miraculous enough for me at this point.)

Brian D McLaren, The Church on the Other Side, pp 30-31