Menu Planning Monday!

Okay I know, it's Tuesday, not Monday...

We were talking in my MOPS group this morning about dinner time and cooking and meal planning, and I mentioned I really enjoy menu planning and making grocery lists and organizing those kinds of things (yes, I'm a nerd).  So I offered to put together a weekly menu with recipes and a grocery list and share that with my table mates.  Clicking on each meal title will take you to that recipe on my recipe blog and clicking here will take you to a Google doc with the grocery list of everything you will need to make these 5 meals (we use leftovers for lunch a lot so I tend to not have a ton of left overs for dinners, so I cook about 5 nights a week, but most of these meals should make plenty so you would not have to actually make all 5 in one week!)

So, here's a menu for a week--feel free to try any or all of these dishes, these are some of our family's favorites & I tried to include a variety--a pasta dish, a soup, a chicken dish, a Mexican food dish, etc.  Happy eating!

Monday:  Chili Cheese Cornbread & salad
Tuesday:  Wendy's Crock Pot Chicken Tacos
Wednesday:  Leftovers
Thursday: Pesto Chicken Pasta and Salad
Friday: Megan's Easy Corn Chowder, dinner rolls, salad
Saturday: Leftovers
Sunday: Ranch chicken and Jean's twice baked potatoes

7 Quick Takes Friday

Happy Friday everyone!!  Here's the latest round up of news from our family this week!

**1**

It has been amazingly gorgeous fall weather here...granted we don't have the beautiful leaves that my sister does in the midwest, but it has been so so pretty here in LA.  Until today that is.  The Santa Ana winds have kicked up again, and that raises the temperature again...so it's supposed to be 90 tomorrow :(  That makes me so so sad.  I cannot even begin to tell you how depressing this is...

**2**

 But! In less than 1 week I will get to witness sights such as this:

  

and this... (my 3 year old niece and their golden...)

the little one and I are off to the midwest!  We fly into Minneapolis & spend 2 nights with my parents and then they'll drive us down to Iowa to spend several days with my sister and her kiddos before Megan drives me back up to Minneapolis for me to fly out.  I cannot wait.  I need fall, SO SO badly.  It is my favorite time of the year and the whole time I lived in Pasadena that was what I missed the most.  So, scarves, hot drinks, beautiful colors, crisp air, and introducing my baby to leaves....here we come!

**3**

Charles commented the other day that our little one will probably have flown more in his first year than he did before he turned 30...which is probably true.  But for now, while it's just Aidan and I don't have 2 kids I'm trying to travel with, I'm going to take advantage of it!  I always had this dream of getting to raise my kids in the same town as my family.  My grandparents lived in town while I was little and it was amazing getting to see them a couple times a week, having them be our main baby sitters, building those relationships and memories.  But since I don't live near family, I made a commitment that I was going to do whatever I could to help Aidan know his family, and that means a lot of plane trips right now....which yes, can be long days, but I'm getting pretty good at traveling with a little one!  Some flights go better than others, but that's to be expected.  I have my packing list saved to my computer that I adapt depending on the trip, and then I get going!  We'll see how long I keep this traveling thing up, but for now I love it :)

**4**

Life feels so different right now, and all because my baby is finally learning how to sleep.  Yes of course not getting up 8 times a night is nice, but honestly it's getting a little break during the days that is making all the difference in my world right now.  I never used to get him to sleep longer than 30 minutes at a time, so during that 30 minutes I would race around trying to get something done, feed myself, respond to an email etc and then he'd be up again.  I never sat down, I never took a deep breath.  I never did anything fun just for me.  Having time during the day now where he's safely in his crib putting himself to sleep and staying asleep for at least an hour or an hour and a half has changed my pace of life drastically.  I don't feel so frantic any more.  I actually made myself a real breakfast of eggs and toast today because I knew I'd have time to eat that and still get something else done before he got up from his morning nap.   I am much less stressed and cranky, praise God!

**5**

It's family fun night at church!  Trick or treating, carnival games, pizza, and my little bug in a Spiderman costume :)  Oh and the haunted house....which I won't go near.  Even though they tell me it's "not that scary" I don't do halloween or haunted houses!

**6**

One of the things I actually haven't done much in the past week or so is read.  I have extra time right now, but I've been having fun working on other projects--mainly my shutterfly photo albums that I'm behind on.  It totally brings back my yearbook days--designing pages, cropping photos, writing captions, trying to tell the story of our year in 100 pages.  I love it, it is so much fun for me.  I finally finished and ordered our 2011 album, and my goal is to make enough progress in our 2012 album so that I can actually order it when we get back from Hawaii the first week of January in 2013.

**7**

I'm trying to think of something creative & witty right now for item number 7....but I'm listening to my baby screaming trying to put himself back to sleep (it's been a rough nap time....thank you garbage man and silly shrieking college girls who decided to have a hysterical giggling fit right outside his window just as he was almost back to sleep the first time....).  So I got nothing.  Happy Halloween everyone!

The Sleep Saga

I have had several moms ask me this weekend what we were doing for sleep training with Aidan, and since one of the main things that led me try any sleep training at all was reading other friend's stories and seeing what they tried and what their kids "survived," I thought I'd share our story.  So first off, thank you friends who had posted your stories, in the midst of the first day of letting Aidan cry it out a bit I was sitting at the computer watching the clock, re-reading your stories for encouragement!! 

Sleep...that illusive thing that new parents crave and everyone wants to ask you about as if it's a badge of honor that your baby somehow sleeps through the night at 8 weeks verses other babies who still can't do that by age 1.  It's an extremely hotly debated topic online and in sleep books, and every pediatrician you ask has a different view.  No wonder parents are so confused--not only are there so many views, but poor parents have to wade through the information while sleep deprived and groggy! 

It hasn't been a secret, Aidan has been a terrible sleeper from day one.  I think part of that really is due to some early infant health issues that we didn't know about. He came home from the hospital tongue tied, which meant he wasn't able to suck properly so he was literally hungry all the time--but we didn't know this until week 4 of his little life.  We just thought he had colic or tummy troubles.  Once we solved that problem his sleep might have improved a little, but nothing drastic.  Over the spring, his sleep started to get worse again.  By May we were getting up almost every hour, and he was super restless, fussy, and screamed if he had to burp. Eventually we put all the pieces together that he had acid reflux, which of course was causing sleep issues!  Poor baby!  We got him on medication and that definitely helped with the fussing, screaming, burping and spitting up, but it only seemed to moderately help his sleep.  Honestly I think that's because by now he'd had 5 months of waking up almost every hour and was so used to having mom and dad put him back to sleep that he had no idea of how to get himself to sleep.  He is a big sucker...but will not take a pacifier or his thumb, which means he demands Mommy in order to get himself to sleep.  And Mommy gave in.  All night long.  Because that seemed easier than having a middle of the night battle with my 6 month old. 

Over the summer I did what I swore I would never do as a parent and let him start sleeping with me in our bed from whenever he woke up around midnight for the rest of the night.  Which means he could nurse and cat nap all night long and I no longer had to run back and forth to his room all night.  Finally I was feeling a little more rested (even though I was still waking up almost every hour!)  We did this for months.  Oh, and he never napped for longer than 30 minutes at a time.  Ever.  Unless he was really sick.  He was chronically tired, but I had no idea how to help him sleep longer or nap longer.  I read at least 4 sleep books, with very different views on sleep and found myself even more confused.  So I started talking to other moms I trusted to ask what they had done to help their little ones sleep better, and the overwhelming consensus, much to my dismay, was that they had let their babies learn how to cry it out.  I cannot even begin to tell you how much anxiety I had about this concept.  I fought it for months.  Nothing else was working though, I kept thinking he'd get better as he got older, but it had been 9 months and I was never able to leave him for more than about 2 hours because he'd be tired and need to go to sleep but wouldn't do that if I wasn't there.  So in the back of my mind I knew I'd eventually have to let this kid cry a little, the "gentler" methods weren't cutting it and I was exhausted and frustrated all the time. 

My mom was in town this past weekend and she had actually brought it up, saying she'd be there to help and for moral support, but that it might be time...poor Aidan needed more sleep for his little brain to develop (I think babies his age should be getting between 13 and 15 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period.  He was at about 10 of very choppy sleep).  I agreed it was time to do something.  There are a couple things I did in advance that really really helped both Aidan and I out in this process.  The biggest is that I actually seriously prayed about this.  I had so much anxiety, and I prayed for God's peace, for his grace, and for me to know with clarity whether or not this was going to be the right thing for my baby and our family.  I know that may sound silly but I had SO much peace all weekend and so much confidence that this was what Aidan needed, and God's grace was everywhere--from how easily Aidan picked up on putting himself to sleep, to having my mom here for moral support.  Another thing I did before hand is that back in July I started helping him get attached to two little blankie/loveys, knowing that at some point he'd have to learn how to soothe himself and would need something comforting.  Every time I nursed him I would hold them next to him, he'd hold on to them and I would place his head on them when he would fall asleep on my shoulder.  Giraffe and Taggie are now a big part of his putting himself to sleep, so I am really glad I started that attachment a few months in advance. 

We also invested in a video baby monitor when he was born, and while it's been helpful up until now, it has been my life line this weekend.  There is NO way I would have been able to do this without being able to see him on the video screen.  I could watch him and literally see he was okay.  He was actually laying down, or he was sucking on his taggie in between fusses.  There were a few times I was about to go in there based on his length of fussing, but when I looked at the monitor I could see that he was actually laying down, holding his giraffe, looking like he was trying so hard to get to sleep, and I knew that me going in there would have started the whole process all over again which is not what we wanted! 

So, with our video monitor in place and him sufficiently attached to his loveys and me sufficiently tired of our existing sleep routine (or non sleep routine), I was ready.  Our plan was to start at bedtime Thursday night, but Thursday afternoon I knew he was tired but wasn't falling asleep while nursing, so, I nursed him for awhile, gave him kisses, told him that Mommy loved him but that he needed to go night night and put him in his crib with his giraffe and his taggie. I walked out as the reality of what just happened to him hit him and a VERY angry scream ensued.  He was NOT a happy camper.  My plan was to go back in every 10 minutes to try and comfort him.  I know some people say "don't pick them up" but I wasn't going to be militant about any of the "don't ever do this..." rules.  So after 10 minutes I went in, picked him up, gave him a hug and tried to hush him a bit.  I told him it was still time to go to sleep and put him back in his crib.  More yelling.  I am actually convinced me going in there made it worse.  So I wasn't too excited about going back in unless it seemed like I really needed to.  After another 15 minutes or so I could still hear him fussing, but my mom said "no look at the monitor, he's doing okay, he's laying down, he's stopped standing up at the side of the crib, he's trying so hard to get to sleep!"  So I decided not to go back in and give him a few more minutes.  She told to me to go walk and get the mail and if he was still fussing when I got back I could go back in (I am SO glad I didn't do this first time by myself!)  I went to get our mail and when I got back he was softly whimpering but looked SO close to sleep that I chose to leave him be.  It took a total of 30 minutes from putting him down to him being asleep, and he only slept for 40 minutes, but he did it!  I was SO proud of him!!

Thursday night I was nursing him to help him relax when he threw up.  A lot.  All over me, the chair, the floor, himself....it was then bath time and needless to say our sleep training was on hold a bit.  He got sick again later in the night, but by Friday morning seemed better.  For both of his naps and bedtime Friday night I nursed him to help him relax and then put him in his bed still awake, with his loveys.  Every time I got the initial angry stand up and scream routine, but it never took him longer than 15 minutes to fall asleep, and he even broke an hour for some of his naps!  Friday night he slept for a few hours, woke up, ate, and then went back to sleep and slept from 1:30 AM until morning!  Saturday night he slept from 7 PM until 7:30 AM just waking up briefly about 10:15 (I didn't feed him, I just went in to hug him and tell him it was still time to sleep--it took him about 10 minutes or so to put himself back to sleep).  Sunday after church I stayed for a meeting and my mom brought him home to feed him lunch and put him down.  She said she tried rocking him for a minute with his loveys but he's never been one to sit still to rock.  So she put him in his crib, told him it was night night time and within 4 minutes he was sound asleep.  He only slept for 30 minutes but he went to bed without mommy! 

Are we sleeping perfectly?  Of course not.  But compared to where we were a week ago (geting up every hour to hour and a half!) he has grown a TON!  Last night he did an 8 hour stretch until 3 AM and then I fed him and he went back to sleep again til morning.  I'm not being militant about any "system" or theory.  I'm not opposed to feeding him once in the night, he is a SUPER active boy who I know burns a ton of calories, and if it seems like he's hungry I don't mind feeding him once, but then he needs to go back to sleep, in his own crib.  Monday he took a 2 hour nap and then an hour and a 1/2 one, but the last 2 days they have been back to 30-40 minutes.  I've left him in there for about 15 minutes after he wakes up to see what he'll do, and today it looked like he was trying SO hard to go back to sleep, but he kept screaming so I finally went in to find a dirty diaper.  Of course, that would have to derail nap time training!  But I've been so thankful for my friend Jean's philosophy that she shared with me months ago....don't stress.  You can always try again at the next nap.  It's a process, and it's going to take awhile. 

Here are a couple last tips or thoughts if you're reading this and thinking about some type of sleep training that I've had over the last 9 months.

• First, if you at all suspect there might be a legitimate medical reason your baby isn't sleeping well, please take care of that first!  Reflux, teething, tummy trouble, being hungry, etc all impact sleep and  some may need some doctor's help before any type of sleep training will be successful.  
• Second, trust your gut as a mom or dad!  You know your little one way better than any sleep experts, so if a particular method doesn't feel right to you, it's okay to not do it just because you read it in some book!  I was SO against crying it out, I thought I could never do it to my baby, until one day I was more okay with it, but I waited until he was 9 months old and I had tried many other things.  And now I'm actually okay with letting him cry because I know he is so capable of putting himself to sleep and for some miraculous reason it is actually working to help him sleep longer.  A lot longer.  
• There is no one way to help your baby sleep.  This worked for us, but there are so many other methods that do work for other babies, just not for our little guy.  

There you have it...that's been our process and story of sleep for the past year.  Obviously it's going to continue to evolve and change as teething happens and growing happens, but that's to be expected.  I'm just so excited I can sleep for a little while, what a gift!!

7 Quick Takes Friday

**1**

It's mommy and baby's first solo weekend!  Daddy is in San Diego at the National Youth Worker's Convention for the weekend, so we have 3 long days together just the two of us.  However, I think I've done a pretty good job of scheduling things for us to be doing each day to break up our time at home together.  Today our new friend Carli is going to join us and we're going to hit up Aidan's little gym for an hour of free play time (which he LOVES, so many fun new things to stimulate him, keep him moving, expose him to new movements and textures and toys, both Charles and I keep saying it's the best money we've spent on him so far!).  Saturday we get to go meet my dear friend Kelli in Santa Monica for a bit, I have not seen her in months, and I can't wait to get over to the coast and catch up!  Sunday I get to have a super amazing high school student over for lunch after church, which makes me so happy :)  So it should be a really good weekend!  Busy days, quiet evenings to read on my own after the little one is in bed for the night and a fresh pan of brownies on my counter for chocolate fixes throughout the weekend. 

**2**

So you all know I love Pinterest.  It's dangerous, but I love it.  Aside from browsing through fun ideas that pop up every day when I log in, getting holiday decorating and baking ideas, and browsing through themes for Aidan's first birthday party (he's having an "A is for Aidan" alphabet themed party by the way!) I've gone searching for some specific things and have loved what I've found.  Here's the round up of my latest Pinterest ideas that have made a huge difference in our home and routines.

This is my bulletin board to-do list.  Since my baby is such a short napper I have learned the hard way that when he goes down I need to be really focused if I want to get anything done.  But that wasn't happening, I was wasting time on Facebook and soon was at the point where I felt like there was quite a bit to do around the house each week, but I wasn't super motivated to do any of it, so I didn't.  Then we hit the weekend and the house was a wreck and I was overwhelmed.  So about two months ago I created a bulletin board to-do list, with each chore on a separate slip of paper (or paint chip in this case) and every Sunday evening I look over the tasks of the week and decide when it makes the most sense to do them based on our schedule.  They get pinned to the appropriate day, and if something changes later in the week, no big deal, I just re-pin it to another day.  This system has been awesome.  It's been two months now and I find it still helps me stay focused on the tasks for the day, plus I just like the pretty bright colors :)  What also is great is that when I find myself starting to get distracted by crumbs on the floor or whatever, I can say "just leave it, tomorrow is vacuuming day, you don't need to worry about it now" which is surprisingly freeing.

Right above my bulletin board is our family menu board, which I still use and love.  I love that I can glance at my kitchen wall and see what is for dinner and what my tasks of that day are.

So I have never minded doing laundry, but what I hate is spending time sorting the clothes first.  It seemed like such a waste of time!  So I found 3 laundry hampers with a removable lining (the lining is actually a laundry bag that comes out) and labeled each one "darks" "lights" and "linens."  Now, when I see that on Wednesday I'm washing a load of darks, I just pull the bag out of the hamper, carry it to our laundry room and it's done.  No more sorting for me!  (Plus carrying a laundry bag and a baby at the same time is WAY easier than carrying a laundry basket and baby at the same time!)

**3**
I was so excited for the fall TV line ups to start.  I'm not a huge TV person, in our house we watch the Today show in the morning and Aidan and I watch Ellen at 4, but other than that it's rarely on.  But I do have a few shows I adore that I've been missing over the summer--mainly Parenthood.  Is anyone else watching Parenthood this season?  Does anyone else cry at every episode??  It is an amazing show, the writers are doing a great job handling issues that every family faces--finances, breast cancer, special needs kids, adoption, and the work vs. home life balance to name a few.  I love this show.  My other new favorite this fall is Go On starring Matthew Perry.  It's funny, sweet, a new charming sit com in my opinion!  My other favorites, Smash and The Biggest Loser don't begin until January.

**4**
Have you checked out the blog How to Talk Evangelical by Addie Zierman?  If you haven't, you need to.  Her writing is amazing.  She's hand's down my new favorite.  Her latest post on Letting Go resonated with me in ways that words haven't in a long time.  Seriously friends, go check her out!

**5**
This is random but I have a new favorite lunch in case anyone needs inspiration.  I've been mixing up a can of light tuna like I would for a sandwich but then have been adding chopped fresh spinach, green onion, bell pepper and tomato and eating it wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla as a tuna wrap.  SO good, I crave them now.

**6**
Mi Madre comes next week!  They are in Iowa celebrating the big birthday weekend at the Backman house this weekend (my sister and both her daughters all have birthdays--the 13th, 15th and 17th of October) and then on Thursday she flies out here for a 4 day weekend.  We haven't had family visit us here since Aidan's baptism in June so I'm ready for some company!

**7**
I am pretending it's fall here in Southern California.  This week we had gorgeous fall weather and even some rain, and it's supposed to be in the 90s again next week.  This kills my northwest soul.  I want to see colors change on trees so badly!  But I can pretend.  So I bought pumpkin spiced chai tea from Trader Joes today and will be enjoying a cup while my child takes his afternoon nap.

7 Quick Takes Friday

I haven't done a 7 Quick Takes Post in awhile, but I have a bit of free time right now and not a ton of inspiration for anything more thought provoking than a general life update...so here you go!

**1**

Why do I have zero energy and inspiration this morning?  Because my husband and I were up every 30-45 minutes last night.  All night.  It was insane.  We think our poor little guy must not have been ready to go off his reflux meds (which we pulled him off this week) because he was exhibiting the same symptoms he did back in May when we put him on the meds...SUPER restless sleep, whimpering in his sleep, crying before burping etc.  SO...the pediatrician is getting a call today asking for another refill of his prescription, looks like he needs a few more months.  It's been two nights now of terrible sleep, I'm not sure how many more we can handle!  

**2**

It's Friday morning.  I love Fridays.  So so much.  We've started being really intentional about keeping Friday as a family sabbath day this fall, after it was months of my husband feeling like he needed to be working 7 days a week to get everything done that was on his plate.  It was killing him, killing our family, and making all of us cranky.  Turns out God instituted the Sabbath because it's a really GOOD thing!  We've fallen into a comfortable routine of me leaving the house first thing to spend a few precious hours alone in my coffee shop haven.  Daddy and baby get time together to play and nap.  In the afternoon we have gone on family adventures--we've been to explore the children's section of a book store, we've been to the Venice Beach Canals, we've been to Ventura so Daddy could surf and Aidan and I could go explore the town...it's been so fun to get out of the valley and go play together.  

**3**

I'm 2 weeks into my next year of life and I'm excited to say I'm on my 3rd book of the year already!  I guess it helps when the first two I picked to read were really great!  I started the year with 7, which I wrote about at length last week and then picked up a fun young adult/children's chapter book The Penderwicks of Gardham Street (a sequel to the book I read last year, The Penderwicks).  I just started our next book club book: Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon, and I'm not sure what I think so far...but I'm only on chapter 2 so I suppose I should reserve judgement for awhile!

**4**

We're two meetings into our MOPS year and I'm super excited about what's happening!  It's been an honor to be part of the leadership team this year, to get a front row seat for how God is moving already in the lives of the moms who have been joining us.  We have a ton of new moms attending, and I have loved meeting them and seeing how each of us are walking this parenting journey.  It's been a lot of work, probably more than I expected, but so so worth it!  It's been fun to actually feel like I'm able to participate in ministry again!

**5**

People keep laughing at how much I travel, even with a baby, and I was able to say for a stretch there (okay a 4 week stretch) that I did not have any plane tickets booked to anywhere for once in my life.  Well..not so much anymore!  On Halloween Aidan and I are flying back to the midwest to see my sister's new digs in Storm Lake, Iowa (with a stop over at my parents in Minneapolis).  I can't wait to be in a place where fall exists!  (Although by then it will be almost more wintery!)

**6**

My mom is coming to visit in two weeks, just to play with Aidan and I am SO excited.  No major projects or agendas or anything, just playtime with Grandma :)

**7**

So this was week one of my "7" commitment--to not spend money anywhere except at 7 pre-selected places.  Honestly, it was a piece of cake this week, but I imagine that within the next couple weeks it might get tougher.  It's been really really good though--any time an impulse came up I just said "that's not on your list of 7, you don't need to go buy XYZ, you can go home and make your own coffee or your own sandwich etc."  

And Then What, American Church?

This morning I wanted to share a (lengthy) excerpt from the book I wrote about last week--7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker.  I found myself underlining the beginning of this passage and then kept underlining and then realized I loved this entire section.  I was so challenged by it, so hit by these words.  This week my husband is teaching the confirmation class on "What is the Mission of the Church?" and so we've been talking about that and thinking about that a lot lately and then I came across this.  I'm not going to offer commentary (it's long enough as it is) but I invite you to read her thoughts on the church.  Lets be bold enough to ask ourselves "have we strayed away from the mission of the church?  Are we spending too much time focused on "serving the saved" as she says?"  (Always a tricky, sticky question since it's the "saved" the give the money to keep our churches going...)  I'm not some crazy fanatical person who is criticizing the Church, I just am a reader and lover of powerful words, and these words struck me.  So I wanted to share.  So here's your food for thought this week...

Taken from 7: An Experimental Mutiny Against Excess by Jen Hatmaker

"What would the early church think if they walked into some of our buildings today, looked through our church Websites, talked to an average attender?  Would they be so confused?  Would they wonder why we all had empty bedrooms and uneaten food in our trash cans?  Would they regard our hoarded wealth with shock?  Would they observe orphan statistics with disbelief since Christians outnumber orphans 7 to 1?  Would they be stunned most of us don't feed the hungry, visit the prisoner, care for the sick or protect the widow?  Would they see the spending on church buildings and ourselves as extravagantly wasteful while 25,000 people die every day from starvation?  

I think they'd barely recognize us as brothers and sisters.  If we told them church is on Sundays and we have an awesome band, this would be perplexing to them.  I believe we'd receive dumfounded stares if we discussed "church shopping" because enough people don't say hello when we walk in the lobby one hour a week.  If they found out one-sixth of the earth's population claimed to be Christians, I'm not sure they could reconcile the suffering happening on our watch while we're living in excess.  They'd wonder if we had read the Bible or worry it had been tampered with since their time. 

But listen Early Church, we have a monthly event called Mocha Chicks.  We have choir practice every Wednesday.  We organize retreats with door prizes.  We're raising three million dollars for an outdoor ampitheater.  We have catchy T-shirts.  We don't smoke or say the F word.  We go to Bible study every semester.  ("And then what American Church?") Well, we go to another one.  We're learning so much.

I think the early church would cover their heads with ashes and grieve over the dilution of Jesus' beautiful church vision.  We've taken His Plan A for mercy to an injured lost planet and neutered it to a clever sermon series and Stitch-and-Chat in the Fellowship Hall, serving the saved.  If the modern church held to its biblical definition, we would become the answer to all that ails society.  We wouldn't have to baby-talk and cajole and coax people into our sanctuaries through witty mailers and strategic ads; they'd be running to us.  The local church would be the heartbeat of the city, undeniable by our staunchest critics.  

Instead, the American church is dying.  We are losing ground in epic proportions.  Our country is a graveyard of dead and vanishing churches.  We've made it acceptable for people to do nothing and still call themselves Christians, and that anemic vision isn't holding.