Re-build, or Build Again?

Imagine you found that a church had caught on fire, a tragedy for sure. After you're done putting out the flames, you are left with one of two choices: to rebuild the church or to burn down and destroy the rest of the church so you can build a new one. Which one are you going to do?
This is basically what Sally Morgenthaler has described at the beginning of her chapter. She describes the church as being, "religious Rip Van Winkles [waking up] to an unrecognizable landscape." What she means is that the culture that we now live in is different than the previous cultures of the recent past. One of the great blind-spots of the older generations of the church that she points out is legalism. For example, she makes statements like, "Where are the confirmed optimists, the pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps Americans, pressing into our worship centers for their next how-to fix, those spiritualized lists that we tack at the end of our sermons? (They followed lists and rules for a decade and still hit the wall. As did their kids. So much for lists.) We look for the squeaky-clean, trendy church market of yore. When we find them, they are most likely inside our church systems already, cocooned in the subcultures we customized for them a few decades ago, reinforcing (unfortunately) our misconceptions of what the world outside our walls is and needs." There's so much truth here. Where I think Sally goes very wrong is that she decides instead of rebuilding what is broken, to completely re-invent what church is to be about. Has not God's Word given us simple means by which to hold church? 2 Timothy 4 simply says to "Preach the word." Luke 22 says that we are to have communion in order to remember Jesus and His death. In Matthew 28, we are told to baptize. Ephesians 6 speaks of prayer. And as we've been studying this past week, Colossians 3 and Ephesians 5 tells us that we should sing worshipfully to God. These are all very "simple" means. Is there room for creativity within these? Sure. Her statements on combining the old and the new can be very good and helpful. The rules of football don't stop teams for doing the "hook-and-ladder" (a trick play), but it does stop teams from throwing the ball into the locker room to score 15 points. That's not in the rules; you can't do that. Sally here, I feel, is trying things out that are just not necessary. She offers an almost mysticism. A "Christocentric mysticism", sure, but mystic nonetheless. What people don't need is a creative interaction with carving into their bread or molding things out of clay. PEOPLE NEED JESUS. THEY NEED TO BE FORGIVEN. THEY NEED LOVE. Here is where the timelessness of the Gospel rings ever true. Sally definitely brings up the sickness, but she gives the people the wrong medicine. The "medicine" is more Jesus, more clear teaching of the Gospel.