Lloyd-Jones and the emergent church

I found this phenomenal quotation from D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones. He preached it in 1927 and yet it sounds like something the church today needs to hear. He gives us some needed insight into the emergent debate as we think about how the church should sit within the pagan culture. He had a well-articulated ecclesiology that stemmed from a deep understanding of the power of the Spirit of God in the life of believers.

>”The world expects the Christian to be different and looks to him for something different, and therein it often shows an insight into life that regular church-goers often lack. The churches organize whist-drives, fetes, dramas, bazaars and things of that sort, so as to attract people. We are becoming almost as wily as the devil himself, but we are really very bad at it; all our attempts are hopeless failures and the world laughs at us. Now, when the world persecutes the church, she is performing her real mission, but when the world laughs at her she has lost her soul. And the world today is laughing at the church, laughing at her attempts to be nice and to make people feel at home.
>My friends, if you feel at home in any church without believing in Christ as your personal Saviour, then that church is no church at all, but a place of entertainment or a social club. For the truth of Christianity and the preaching of the gospel should make a church intolerable and uncomfortable to all except those who believe, and even they should go away feeling chastened and humble.”