Social Club or Transformational Powerhouse

I came across this quote from The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. on the position of the church:. It continues to be true in the 21st Century.

"There was a time when the church was very powerful-in the time when the early Christians rejoiced at being deemed worthy to suffer for what they believed. In those days the church was not merely a thermometer that recorded the ideas and principles of popular opinion; it was a thermostat that transformed the mores of society. . . . But the judgment of God is upon the church [today] as never before. If today's church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the 20th century. (Letter from a Birmingham Jail, p. 17)"

I see two problems which have made a course like LMC necessary: 1) Ministries or the church has a hard time communicating its message. 2) The message we do communicate often fails because our authenticity is in jeopardy.