I just received the following e-mail from a brother whom I repect as much as anyone.

I am really not that impressed with all the new externals for doing church. What I see as needing changing is the institutional mindset, the religiosity, the doctrinal traditions that are not rooted in Scripture. I believe we can have a newness birthed by the Spirit with external forms both new and old. Last Sunday I visited at my son's church in Dallas -- a Bible church with 2,000 members, a loud band, projected songs (of which I only knew one) and a preacher who dressed casually -- in a sanctuary that looked like a warehouse and a "stage" with no pulpit. The previous six Sundays I had been attending the Episcopal Church of St. John the Divine, which had about 1,200 present in a sanctuary with an ornate altar down front, processional and recessional with robed choir, vestmented clergy, cross-bearers, etc., kneeling-benches, going to the altar and kneeling to receive Communion. I totally believe God was present and experienced in both places, but my personal aesthetics and emotional bent were served much more at the Episcopal Church rather than the Bible church. My wife, on the other hand, would vote for the Bible church rather than St. John's if those were her only two options.
What I want to see is Spirit and spirit, Christ-centeredness and Bible-teaching, a loving fellowship and a sense of reaching out with the gospel others. And I see that in both my son's Bible church and at St. John's Episcopal.

If I could add commentary to the above it would be ... "The traditional church continues to meet the needs of many; likewise the post office continues to run even though we've got e-mail, what the emerging church is doing is e-mail, and the established church has the postal routes."
...I can't remember whom to give credit to for that thought, but I like it...what say you?