Remember the cross

Dan Edelen offers an insightful post on the five most pressing needs of the church in the United States. What's the very most pressing? Going back to the cross:

Many of our churches no longer preach the cross. The cross demands too much for the majority of people, so they bypass it altogether. As a result, we have too many fleshly, half-baked disciples who may be deceiving themselves as to the truth of their actual conversion. What could be more deceptive than to believe that Jesus is ours without a trip to Gethsemane? Only by that journey can we take that next step in making our calling and election sure. Preachers who do not preach the cross are not preaching the Gospel. If they were, we'd have a whole lot fewer megachurches and a whole lot more folks who have died to the world and are now doing great things for the King and His Kingdom.

Ouch.