"Asleep in the light"

Dan Edelen has written a scathing essay on how the church in the United States is awash in Christian conferences. These conferences draw big-name speakers, thousands or participants, and cost millions upon millions of dollars. Yet somehow they don't seem to translate to revival. In China, on the other hand, the church holds no conferences, yet revival is burning brightly:

What if each of us took the money we had allocated to yet another conference on our calendars and instead used that money to pay for medical care for the uninsured single mother with four kids who lives down the street? What if we took the weekend we would have spent with our posteriors planted in some padded theater seat soaking up a message we already know from yet another “gifted” speaker we’ve heard a bazillion times already and instead spent that time fixing up the house of one of the elderly in our congregation? What if we actually took all the things we’ve already learned about Jesus and put them to use telling others about Him and doing good works in His name so that when we have to stand before Him we look like sheep, not goats?

Good questions. Dan is on to something here. My fellow Christian countrymen, are we listening?