If the church was a mission to the moon, and I was the commander of the mission, my call to Mission Central would be: "Oh God, we have a problem!" The problem is that when the vast majority of people think of the Church, or of a Christian, their thoughts are negative!

The Church in America needs to go through a re-branding process. By re-branding I mean simply this:  We need to begin to work hard to reshape the association that comes to mind when the average person thinks of one of those ‘C’ words.

Contrary to what is spoon fed to us by the Christian media, the problem with the image of the Church is not a result of an inundation of negativity from the ’secular media.’ Please please, let’s retire that word, it is so ‘us vs. them.’ Jesus never thought in those terms. When we use terms like that we sound like victims, like everyone is out to get us.

The truth is we have an image problem that we have created ourselves. Mostly out of sheer, 100% laziness. Instead of living out the life of Jesus on a daily basis, we have sought the ‘good life’ like all of our neighbors. After decades and generations of doing that we wonder, ‘Gee, I wonder why no one listens to us? I wonder why no one takes us seriously?’  My response: ‘Gee, my foot!’  Laziness leads to no credibility. It’s really that simple.