Too important not to repeat.

Instead of always being one of the chief bastions of the social status quo, the Church is to develop a Christian counter-culture with its own distinctive goals, values, standards, and lifestyle--a realistic alternative to the contemporary technocracy which is marked by bondage, materialism, self-centeredness, and greed.

Christ's call to obedience is a call to be different, not conformist. Such a Church--joyful, obedient, loving, and free--will do more than please God: it will attract the world. It is when the Church evidently is the Church, and is living a supernatural life of love by the power of the Holy Spirit, that the world will believe.

John R. W. Stott (b.1921),
"Obeying Christ in a Changing World"