Where have all the good times gone?

That's an old Van Halen song, that has a message.
Many people think that the church was so much better than it is today. I'm always hearing about the good ol' days. If you think that way, read this;
In other words, he wished to see Christians doing the things that Christ did, and using, in matters of the church, the same business sense which they brought to bear upon their own affairs. He thought of the poverty, squalor and wretchedness of some for whom Christ died, and of the costly luxuries of the church into whose hands the Master had given the care of these. He thought of the doors to places of sin, swinging wide before the young, while the doors of the church were often closed against them. He thought of the secret societies and orders, doing the work that the church was meant to do,and of the honest, moral men, who refused to identify themselves with the church, though professing belief in Jesus Christ; and, thinking of these things and more like them, he was forced to say that the church must change her methods; that she must talk less and do more;that she must rest her claims to the love of mankind where Christ rested his; upon the works that He did. He saw that the church was proving false to the Christ; that her service was a service of the lips only; that her worship was form and ceremony--not of the heart--a hollow mockery. He saw that she was not touching the great problems of life; and that, while men were dying for want of spiritual bread, she was offering them only the stones of ecclesiastical pride and denominational egotism. He saw all this, and yet,--because he was a strong man--remained full of love for Christ and taught that those things were not Christianity but the lack of it;and placed the blame where it justly belonged, upon the teaching and doctrines of men, and not upon the principles of Christ; but upon the shepherds, who fattened themselves, while the starving sheep grew thin and lean; and not upon Him who came to seek and save that which was lost.
Sound like today's church?
Well it isn't.
This was written by a man that lived from 1872 to 1944, Harold Bell Wright, and this is an excerpt from his book,"That Printer of Udell's".
What does this tell us?
That no matter what generation you want to talk about, the church has always dealt with the same problems that we deal with today.
The prescription to fix the problem is the same today as it was then. It cannot become content.
We cannot be content as a church while people are in need. We cannot be content as a church to the point we really don't want anyone else to join our club. We cannot be content as a church when people are dying and going to an eternal hell. When we do become content about these things, God simply stops using us.
Think about the church in Revelation, the one in Ephesus, that lost its first love. In other words they became content. Jesus tells them to remember the height from which they had fallen. To repent and do the things they had done before. You can argue that this letter was for the church in Ephesus or it was symbolic for every church, but the meaning is clear either way, the church can become very content with itself and God does not dig that.
In the end the question is simple for us as leaders, either we lead by example and encourage strongly our congregation to mature enough to see what church is really all about, or...
we become hospice providers for a dying church.