- Steve Gray

     My religion has lost its soul. This book is about getting it back. While writing it, I argued with myself. How worthwhile is any attempt to find the soul of the church and raise it from the dead? I have decided to try. We all have to try. Religion in America is in crisis. It needs fixing.
    Religion is how I make my living. I preach it. I teach it. I write and sing songs about it. I produce a TV show that is turning religion on its sacred head. I am like a junkyard mechanic foraging through old worn out rusted parts, trying to get this religious jalopy running again. I know that many Americans have given up. They have lost hope that my absurd religion can ever change. I am not losing hope.
     Eleven years ago, I was the pastor of a small church in the middle of nowhere that didn’t even have a telephone. Like John the Baptist, I have come in from the country wilderness with a fresh message. Neither John nor Jesus preached to the pagan Romans and neither do I. Their fiery messages were aimed squarely at the religious folks of their day. I follow the same pattern, calling the religious in America to make some big changes—quickly—before God removes his presence completely.
     I remember a preacher friend in town dropping by to pick up a CD of a recent sermon I had preached. As he was walking back to his car, he turned to me and said,
        “You know, the other preachers in town are afraid of you.”
        “Why’s that?” I asked.
        “Because,” he said. “they are afraid you might be right.”
    I am aware of the criticism I may be up against by exposing the truth. But I am not taking wild swings at someone else’s religion. I am trying to rescue my own. I believe it is worth saving rather than deserting. My religion takes pride in its ability to reach the world, but I don’t see the world being reached by it. I see the world being infuriated with it. On the other hand, those who have never set foot in a church are applauding the very things you are about to read. That’s why I think I may be on to something.
     What we don’t need is more of the same religion packaged differently. What we do need is a church that God will attend. Historically, when God attends anything, God things and God events happen.
     Here is the way I see it: Most people who don’t go to church are not anti-God. They are just anti-religion. Even many who go to church faithfully are fed up with what religion has become. That means the religious machine in our nation is in the hands of just a few people, and as best I can tell, they don’t want anything to change. That’s why religion in America needs this book.
     Let me show you, before you read another page, what an expert theologian I have become. A few years ago, a reporter asked me why most Americans don’t go to church. Here is my answer: “They don’t go to church (drum roll, please) because they don’t want to.” Deep, huh? They don’t like it. They don’t love it. They don’t want any more of it. They deserve better. I want to help give it to them.

Steve Gray
January, 2008