Dr. Oz talks with a woman about the steps to getting healthy. First, look at yourself and see your true state. Second, decide to do something different. Third, track your progress toward your goal.
He just described the evangelical project.
That first step is the one we tend to skimp on the most in the church these days. Dr. Oz took a woman and weighed her, took her vital signs, tested her blood sugar, and told her how old her body thought she was compared to her chronological age. The hard, truth of how unhealthy she was struck her hard.
Isn’t this what John Wesley called repenting? Wesley talked of repentance not as “turning around” as we often do, but in terms of looking at our true state and seeing ourselves as we truly are. Until people felt a true and deep need for the gospel, they would not grasp on to it with joy.
I don’ t think this requires shame or telling people to dwell on lists of sins, but it does mean people need – really need – to experience the absence of God in their lives. We have a lot of defense mechanisms against this experience. Shallow piety might be one response. Loud but hollow atheism might be another. Sedation and distraction might be another. There are many ways to avoid the truth.
Old-style hell-fire preaching is not the answer. It often plays right into our defenses. But that does not change the need for the first step.
If it is good enough for Dr. Oz, why should the church leave it to the past.
I am a part-time local pastor serving 
The doctrine of original sin is surely more humbling to man than the opposite: And I know not what honour we can pay to God, if we think man came out of His hands in the condition wherein he is now.
