I was reading an article on life in first century Greece a few weeks ago (sounds boring I know - but its what you do if you want to get your head into the world of the New Testament and it is not boring, really) ! While I was reading this article, I came across this.  "When Paul arrived in Greece he found an ideas-hungry society".  Ideas hungry... when did you last meet anyone who was open to new ideas?  You don't get many of those 'round here.

So what are we hungry for?  If Paul had arrived in our world what would he find us hungry for?

I think we are an image hungry society - that's right - we are addicted to pictures.

Well, you wouldn't have stayed so long on this website if there hadn't been some nice pictures, would you?  We are surrounded by images.  When politicians want to get our support their image is more important than  what they actually say or do.  We are bamboozled by images.

So there is always a temptation for us to believe that if the church's image is right people will believe what we say.  Get a nice logo and a website and away you go!

But people are not that stupid.  They know deep within them (God hard-wired it in there) that spiritual reality is tested by what people do.  People will not be impressed by what we say, or the graphics we present, but they will register what we do.

It is what you do that is important - let God look after your image.  He is a good publicist.