Luther still relevant

From "Where have the young people gone?: Some churches suffering loss of attendance" By Lucienda Denson (The Broken Arrow Ledger),

...The Rev. John Wilke, senior pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church [in Broken Arrow, OK], has read the book (“Already Gone,” by Ken Ham and Britt Beemer, with Todd Hillard.) and said he found it to be a fascinating study.

He cited one of Luther’s writings as something for church leaders to consider: “A faith that costs nothing and demands nothing is worth nothing.”

“I think that is where the church is today. I get too many things in the mail from churches that say, ‘Come just the way you are, you don’t have to change,’” Wilke, said.

“While God loves you where you are, he expects you to change. We don’t put the fear of God in our churches, we don’t have that respect. We’ve made Jesus our homeboy. He’s not our homeboy, he’s our Saviour.”

Wilke said the only church he knows of that is experiencing growth in the 20-to-29-year old age group is the Greek Orthodox Church.

“The Greek Orthodox Church is a liturgical church. Kids want to return to something different from what they get from the world. If we want to reach these kids again, we are going to have to return to what the early church was doing. We need to raise the bar,” he said.