Mother Churches

As the EC conversation continues to buzz more loudly in the ears of so many evangelicals, I think statements like this must be just as loud.

The unwieldy, old-fashioned church communities we've emerged from are like mothers--some supportive and helpful; others worn out, not well, depressed; all of them carrying a certain amount of history and baggage with them (because that's the price of growing up).  Of course we should grow up and do our generation's thing.  That's what parents want deep down.  But let's remember to be kind to the mother church--without her we wouldn't be here.

Maggi Dawn in Steve Taylor's The Out of Bounds Church?, page 56.