John Piper:

To begin with, the older I get, the less impressed I am with flashy
successes and enthusiasms that are not truth-based. Everybody
knows that with the right personality, the right music, the right
location, and the right schedule you can grow a church without
anybody really knowing what doctrinal commitments sustain it, if
any. Church-planting specialists generally downplay biblical doctrine
in the core values of what makes a church �successful.� The
long-term effect of this ethos is a weakening of the church that is
concealed as long as the crowds are large, the band is loud, the
tragedies are few, and persecution is still at the level of preferences.
But more and more this doctrinally-diluted brew of music,
drama, life-tips, and marketing seems out of touch with real life
in this world�not to mention the next. It tastes like watered down
gruel, not a nourishing meal. It simply isn�t serious enough.
It�s too playful and chatty and casual. Its joy just doesn�t feel deep
enough or heartbroken or well-rooted. The injustice and persecution
and suffering and hellish realities in the world today are
so many and so large and so close that I can�t help but think that,
deep inside, people are longing for something weighty and massive
and rooted and stable and eternal. So it seems to me that the
trifling with silly little sketches and breezy welcome-to-the-den
styles on Sunday morning are just out of touch with what matters
in life.
PIPER