Allow me to share some of the article's excerpts. "How much sin should we expect in the church? We have gauges for other elements of church life. We generally monitor attendance. We know how many people are in small groups. Somebody counts the offerings. And often we don't just measure what we're interested in-we set goals. Has any of us heard of a church that set a goal for a 5-percent sin reduction next year?

The problem with what might be called the "victorious Christian living" mindset is not that it takes sin too seriously. The problem is it inevitably becomes selective about which sins God hates the most, and they always end up being "somebody else's" sins - not our's. It misses the deeper layers of sin: sin not just as concrete acts of lying or cheating, but the sin of narcissism that infects my preaching and image-management that corrupts my conversations; the sin in my motives and emotions that is real but that I cannot simply turn off.

Ortberg suggests that we "recalibrate our sin monitor." "There is a paradox about sin: it may be impossible to know how well you're doing at battling it. People who are in great physical shape usually know it. Musicians who have honed their craft could generally tell you how. But when is the last time someone whose soul you deeply admire said to you: "I have really been on a roll when it comes to overcoming sin lately"? Those souls among us who are doing the best in contesting it don't seem to think they're doing particularly well. Maybe this is more than just modesty or neurosis. Maybe they're aware of the insidious danger.

Do I have the courage to awaken guilt? Taylor Branch wrote how in Montgomery, Alabama, in the 1950s bus drivers would accept money from African-American riders, but then would make them disembark and walk on the sidewalk to re-enter through the rear door lest they touch a white person going down the center aisle.

Sometimes, for the fun of cruelty, drivers would take the money and drive off while the person was walking toward the back door, leaving them without fare or transportation. There was a sin of anger here. But it was not that black people got angry. It was that white people did not. Worse, it was that white people, who read the Bible and worshiped in church, did not rise up in fury to demand justice.

Are we lifting up and recognizing and encouraging the sin-convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit? At Willow Creek recently, Bill Hybels preached a series called "Enough." After one of the sermons, he challenged members of the congregation to raise their hands if they were willing to surrender their possessions and lifestyles fully to God and actually decide to use their resources to serve the poor and honor God. There was a time for public declaration of intent.

Then Bill said he wanted to have a word with all the folks who did not raise their hands. And this is what he said: "I hope you have a terrible afternoon. And then I hope you have a terrible evening. I hope the Holy Spirit keeps after you, and you have to keep thinking this one through, until you're able to raise your hand as well."

Sometimes my sin is so close to me, like my skin, I don't even know it's there. What matters most, I suppose, is not so much that I am trying to reduce the sin factor. It's that I come to love the life God has created, the shalom God cherishes, and hate the sin that corrupts it, not because I am so "righteous" but because that life is so good. The greatest sin would be to stop wrestling."