What am I talking about? Current indicators in people's choices about religion, faith, spirituality, and actions are all saying the trend is away from religious form. 
There has to be life. 
When I was in my twenties I was looking for life. Church, as I knew it, was dead formality. Oh, we honored the word, we studied the Bible, we heard good sermons, but where was the life. The impacting presence of God was missing. What good is it to read of miracles and then state that they do not happen today? What good is it to say we believe and live in unbelief? If there is a God, then why should He not be active now? The theology that forces the miraculous out of it; is no theology of our God. And just because it is not happening in our circles does not mean God is dead. We are.
As a young man I was asking these kinds of questions. As I was conversing one day with a man, not too much older than me, I stated that things had to change and there needed to be the vitality of life in our gospel. He told me that I could never do that and that things would not change. He infuriated me. I walked away thinking that there was no way I was going to believe him. I knew change could come and that there were powerful God presence events ahead. Yes, God did move and movements came into being and changed people and institutions over a couple of decades.
But, here we are today. Charismatic, Pentecostal, and Evangelicals are slowly slipping back into forms, copying each other and chasing the current successful leader with all his latest and greatest "how to's."  We put a label on the church; yet often inside there is nothing that would indicate the life mentioned on the label. We are looking for the "key" to success. What can we do to win people to the Lord, the church?
The answer lies not in ourselves, but in God. We are finally coming to a place of desperation. This is good. It is no longer the Moral Majority, the Conservative Right, and all the various societies formed for Christianity. The ballot box does not convert, nor create a godly government. People are Christians, not governments. Unless God moves, all is lost anyway. The desperation caused by the failures of the political process has finally awakened the need for serious Christianity.
It is a time for revolution, not reviving the failure, but bringing significant change that begins at the grassroots. It is time for new wine and some new wineskins to hold the move.
Do I know what this all entails? No. I do sense that there is something about to happen. There are some significant changes coming and we need to be looking for them. Above all we have to be willing to be irrelevant. Quit worrying about fitting in and wear the stigmata.