Enemies of the Church?

In the book -Resident Aliens- William Willimon and StanleyHauerwas listed some rather unconventional "enemies of the church" which may even be present as we come together to worship, or even partake at the Lord's Table. They are worth thinking through:
1. One such enemy is SENTIMENTALITY.
Commenting that "exciting services" and "good feeling" have become ends in themselves in theministry they write; "When that happens the church and ministry cannot avoid sentimentality, which we believe is the most detrimental corruption of the church today.
Sentimentality, after all, is but the way our UNBELIEF is lived out. SENTIMENTALITY, THAT ATTITUDE OF BEING ALWAYS READY TO UNDERSTAND BUT NOT TO JUDGE, CORRUPTS US AND THE MINISTRY. This is as true of the conservative churches as it is of the liberal. Sentimentality is the subjecting of the church year to "Mother's Day" and "Thanksgiving."
Sentimentality is the necessity of the church to side with the (..politically correct...causes-my substitution for Sananistas vs.Contras.)
Sentimentality is "the family that prays together stays together." Without God, without the One whose death on the cross challenges all our "good feelings," who stands beyond and over against our human anxieties, all we have left is sentiment, the saccharine residue of theism is demise."

2. A second enemy is LETTING THE WORLD DEFINE THE CHURCH; or accepting conventional definitions of the church.
If the church accepts thevalues of our rotten culture, then (and I quote again:)
"(The) church will be a source of conventional, socially acceptable answers, a place to reiterate what everybody already knows, even without the church. We shall die, not from crucifixion, but from boredom. (We- especially pastors are conditioned) "to think in terms of what the church can do to help people- but within parameters set by a society that does not know God. In that myopic world view, solutions to what ails us will be petty. WHAT SORT OF COMMUNITY WOULD WE HAVE TO BE TO BE THE SORT OF PEOPLE WHO LIVE BY OUR CONVICTIONS?"

3. A third enemy of the church named by Hauerwas and Willimon isUNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS:
We try to make the church whatever WE thinkit ought to be, or what we think the WORLD wants it to be to meet their perceived needs. Hauerwas and Willimon are speaking especially of pastors, but this truth applies to us all. We must focus in onwhat GOD wants us to do, and then we find we have peace with Him, andwith ourselves! Listen to what they say about pastors, and see if there is an application for you in this enemy of "UnrealisticExpectations":
"Pastors come to despise what they are and hate the community that made them that way. Because the church is not a place to worship God, but rather a therapeutic center for the meeting of one another's unchecked, unexamined needs, the pastor is exhausted. Only a few months into his or her first pastorate the new pastor realizes that people's needs are virtually limitless, particularly in an affluent society in which there is an ever-rising threshold of desire (which we define as "need." There is no job description, no clear sense of purpose other than the meeting of people's needs, so there is no possible way for the pastor to limit what people ask of the pastor. Not knowing what they should do pastors try to do everything and be everything for everybody. The most conscientious among them become exhausted and empty. The laziest of them merely withdraw into disinterested detachment. Not knowing why their pastor is there, the congregation expects the pastor to be and do everything. They become unrealistic critics of the clergy rather than co-workers, fellow truth tellers." Self hatred is inevitable in someone who feels abused, prostituted, unfairly criticized. The burden of being a generally good person, open and available to people of unbounded need is too great for anybody to bear. Self-hate and loneliness result. "

The quotes are from the book-- Resident Aliens, now probably ancient history - but still very relevent. Willimon is now a United Methodist bishop....