Hi Pastor Dan, I stumbled onto your site lokoing for a reference on pluralistic leadership and was stopped short by your thoughts on inoculation. I agree. I too am a pastor and have felt that all too often being a Christian or not makes very little difference in our society. When you ask, Why does it seem that a being a Christian or not being a Christian makes very little difference in the overall direction of one’s life in American society? The answer is, Because it doesn't. Because Christ is absent from our Christianity. Why? I believe it is because we as Christians are more enamored with the world than we are our Lord. Or, another way to put it, albeit sounds harsh, is we love our sin more than we love Christ. If we were lovers of Christ and seekers of His Kingdom and it's principles than we would be a peculiar people, salt and light in this world. But alas we are so much like the world the worldling sees no reason to change. Bill Hull put it this way in His book The Disciple Making Pastor, I maintain that the evangelical church is weak, self-indulgent, and superficial, that has been thoroughly discipled by its culture (pg. 19). In other words as the world goes, so goes the church. How are we ever going to prepare a people to meet the Lord and to herald in His coming if can’t take our eyes off the world long enough to see other people. When Sunday services are over we are off again to our secular pursuits. Worship should be the smallest part of our Christian experience. What I mean is God’s people will be serving Him all week long – seeking the lost, ministering to the needs of the “least of these,� taking every opportunity available to us to further the Kingdom.I think it was John Maxwell who I heard say speaking of leadership, “The fish smells from the head down.� This is why I was lokoing for something on pluralistic leadership. It seems to me that too many of our leaders are taking in all manner of methods for outreach at the price of great compromise with the world, and loss to our people. How are we to be a light on the hill when we are living in the lowlands of compromise, scurrying about in the darkness with the worldling and dubbing it as love. It is not loving to call men and women to nothing higher than they are already experiencing. Hoping that they will catch Christianity. We have denied the power of God and embraced a form Rather we should be calling the lost to repentance in clear tones but that isn't fashionable these days and it would, we fear, hinder church growth as you discussed earlier. But when Jesus spoke to the Rich Young Ruler was He trying to be fashionable, or was He concerned about church growth? No, He was interested in that man's soul and knew what he needed to save it. Sadly, he walked away, as many will. The way is a narrow one When Jesus told the multitude of disciples who were more interested in a worldly kingdom than a spiritual one, Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you can have no part in Me. was He interested in winning a crowd or rather in finding out who was really with Him for He could do nothing other than speak the truth about Himself and His mission. However, we have become more concerned about lokoing good in the world’s eyes rather than being good in God's eyes. All that to say not if, but when the foretold crisis comes to this world preceding our Lord's return (Daniel 12:1) God's professed people and the world that they were to warn of His coming I fear will be no more ready than the Hotoos and Tootsies as they, many of them profess Christians, were killing their brothers in Christ. What I mean is Christianity didn’t usurp their tribal ways, their culture. And neither has Christ made the impress yet on His people that He intends to make, that will see them through the Time of Trouble. But can the needed change happen? Yes! Will it happen? Yes! But only for those who will take seriously Christ’s call to forsake this world – not lokoing back as did Lot’s wife, and deny self, bearing their cross and following Him. This is the only way a difference is going to be made in the lives of our people in America, and thus America itself. It is the only way that Christ offers through Him and His example of self-sacrifice.My thoughts. Thanks for the forum.Dave