If I just want to feel good or get self-help, I'll buy a $12 book from Borders and join a gym.  The church the Bible described is exciting and adventurous and wrought with sacrifice.  It cost believers everything, and they still came.  It was good news to the poor and stumped its enemies.  The church was patterned after a Savior who had no place to lay his head and voluntarily died a brutal death, even knowing we would reduce the gospel to a self-serving personal improvement program where people were encouraged to make a truce with their Maker and stop sinning and join the church, when in fact the gospel does not call for a truce but a complete surrender. -Jen Hatmaker