Great Ryan Dobson “Undone” Podcast featuring Mike DeVries. Grab the MP3 or the podcast feed. It contains my favorite podcasted quote, and maybe my favorite quote of all time:

Mike DeVries: I’ve been told, ‘The message should never change, but the method should always change.’ So we keep thinking we need to keep changing our methodology. For me, I liken it to MTV’s Pimp My Ride. I watch that show and I’m amazed, because here’s this Pinto that’s worth $1,000 and they pour $50,000 into it. But what you still have is a $50,000 Pinto. You really didn’t change it, you still have a Pinto….So here’s my question. Most of the church has just pimped the ride. They basically have just tried to change methodology, put on new window dressing…but I don’t think we’ve actually gotten to the core of the issue. And here it is….I think we do need to re-examine the message….For so long, we have presented the gospel as, ‘If you were to die tonight, do you know where you’d go?’

Ryan Dobson: It’s the insurance policy of Christianity.

Mike DeVries: Now, is the eternal destiny involved in this discussion? Sure. But when we just present it as this futuristic thing, something that’s going to happen way off somewhere else, we forget that that’s not where people are wrestling. That’s not where people’s lives are finding conflict. They’re asking about a faith that’s for now. They’re asking about, ‘Hey, I need to know how this life works. I need to know about how this faith doesn’t just fit for someday when I die, but what does it really have to say to me in the here and now?…And unfortunately we don’t even speak to that in the church.

“Most of the church has just pimped the ride.” Wow. Amazing. And, sadly, true.

Another great DeVries quote from this podcast:

“You’re not just waiting around like you’ve got some kind of ticket for the bus stop, and you’re just kind of waiting around for the bus, and we’re gonna sing songs about the bus, how great the bus is, and we want to hand out other bus tickets to gather people around the bus stop.”