Dennis E. Johnson, in his book, The Message of Acts in the History of Redemption, makes some good observations on the lack of conviction among Christians that God is actually at work in our churches. He traces it back to the deistic worldview that dominated the American churches from the outset. An extended quotation:

Deism...enjoyed the perks of a doctrine of creation—meaning, intelligent design, and order in the universe, and even a theoretical basis for morality—without the uncomfortable meddling of a God who intervenes in history through miracle, judgment, or salvation.

Deism as an ideology passed from the scene long ago. It was only an unstable halfway house on the way to the naturalistic determinism that seized the intellectual centers of the West by the middle of the nineteenth century, only lately to be challenged by waves of neopagan spirituality. More persistent and more troubling was the practical deism that had wormed its way into the churches of colonial New England, paving the way for theoretical deism and Transcendentalism to follow. Such practical deism is alive and well today, even in churches that take their stand on the Bible. However correct their statements in Bible studies or Sunday school classes may be, in practice many Christians really assume that God's "interference" in people's lives pretty much came to a halt sometime in the past—perhaps in the apostles' time, perhaps at the Reformation or some revival of bygone days, but surely before our time.

Would we say this out loud? Never! But our meager prayer lives, our anxiety, our dependence on novel techniques in evangelism, our hope in technology to solve spiritual problems, our doubt that loving discipline can restore wandering brothers and sisters to repentance and reconciliation—all these testify to our unspoken assumption that God's real action is in the past and in the future, but not in the present (16-17).

The point of Johnson's book is to demonstrate, using the lessons of the book of Acts, that the Spirit is still at work in the church today and to help us recover that conviction. A renewed belief that God is actively at work would have significant implications for the life and ministry of the church.