I heard a commercial for an Easter service last week. Actually, I didn’t know that it was a commercial for an Easter service until the last sentence or two. Until then, it sounded a bit like a stage production. They talked about their contemporary music, their great speaker, and even a guest appearance from a professional athlete (I forget who or what sport, but I’m sure you’d be impressed if I could remember). They even mentioned that the price of admission was free.
The commercial reminded me of a church that a friend of mine and I visited back when we were in college. When we left, he had this to say:
“If that was any more choreographed, they’d have to roll credits at the end.”
A casual reader might, at this point, assume that I’m about to lambast the modern church for such frivolities as electric guitars, bass guitars, drums, and songs not written 100 years ago. I can assure you, that’s not the case. But, to really clear the air, I’ll list a few things I’m not opposed to.
Things I’m not opposed to (when found in a church):
-contemporary music
-a casual atmosphere
-new-fangled power point presentations
-a preacher who refers to people as “dudes”
-professional athletes speaking (provided they have something to say)
What I’m opposed to is this: Churches billing themselves as places of entertainment. The church is many things, but it shouldn’t be a place to get light entertainment. The church has three primary functions*, they are:
1. To provide a place to worship God.
2. To education His (God’s) people about Him (God).
3. To equip said people to go out and tell other people about Him.
Is the music at your church rocking? Great. Everyone loves a good beat. Does it glorify God? If not, then it doesn’t really have a place inside the church. Does your preacher tell jokes, show movie clips, or do magic tricks? Fantastic. Do the jokes, movie clips, or rabbits jerked rudely from hats help clarify some aspect of God, our relationship with Him, or how we should behave as Christians? Do they clarify the content of his sermon? Or are they there so that you’ll come back next week to hear the one about the rabbi, the priest, and the inebriated rabbit?
Somewhere along the line, the church started competing for the attention of people more concerned with themselves than with the world around them. To get people in the pews (or padded interlocking chairs as the current trend seems to be), we stooped to parlor tricks and flashy presentations. Why? I think we thought that if we could just get them in, get those butts in the seats, that they’d see eventually. It was a war of attrition. And I’ve seen it work. I’ve seen people spend years sitting in a pew only to one day realize why they were sitting in that pew. But it doesn’t always work that way. I think the wrong side is in danger of getting ground down. I think we’re perilously close to losing the Message to the tools we’ve used to get people to hear the message. We’re in danger of becoming all fluff and no substance.
This concerns me for one very important reason. It’s possible to go to church every Sunday for your entire life and still go to Hell.
But man, oh man, was the music rockin’.
*For the purposes of this list, “church” is the building and all the activities that take place inside it. It’s analogous to the Temple of the Old Testament. The proper definition of “church” is the whole of Christendom (that is, all the people who are Christians form the church), but that’s not the common usage. Show of hands, who thought of the church as the people vice the building when I started my list? I thought so. That’s why I left out humanitarian efforts like feeding the poor and clothing the naked. Those are things that Christians should be doing, but not necessarily the purpose of the building-church.
The commercial reminded me of a church that a friend of mine and I visited back when we were in college. When we left, he had this to say:
“If that was any more choreographed, they’d have to roll credits at the end.”
A casual reader might, at this point, assume that I’m about to lambast the modern church for such frivolities as electric guitars, bass guitars, drums, and songs not written 100 years ago. I can assure you, that’s not the case. But, to really clear the air, I’ll list a few things I’m not opposed to.
Things I’m not opposed to (when found in a church):
-contemporary music
-a casual atmosphere
-new-fangled power point presentations
-a preacher who refers to people as “dudes”
-professional athletes speaking (provided they have something to say)
What I’m opposed to is this: Churches billing themselves as places of entertainment. The church is many things, but it shouldn’t be a place to get light entertainment. The church has three primary functions*, they are:
1. To provide a place to worship God.
2. To education His (God’s) people about Him (God).
3. To equip said people to go out and tell other people about Him.
Is the music at your church rocking? Great. Everyone loves a good beat. Does it glorify God? If not, then it doesn’t really have a place inside the church. Does your preacher tell jokes, show movie clips, or do magic tricks? Fantastic. Do the jokes, movie clips, or rabbits jerked rudely from hats help clarify some aspect of God, our relationship with Him, or how we should behave as Christians? Do they clarify the content of his sermon? Or are they there so that you’ll come back next week to hear the one about the rabbi, the priest, and the inebriated rabbit?
Somewhere along the line, the church started competing for the attention of people more concerned with themselves than with the world around them. To get people in the pews (or padded interlocking chairs as the current trend seems to be), we stooped to parlor tricks and flashy presentations. Why? I think we thought that if we could just get them in, get those butts in the seats, that they’d see eventually. It was a war of attrition. And I’ve seen it work. I’ve seen people spend years sitting in a pew only to one day realize why they were sitting in that pew. But it doesn’t always work that way. I think the wrong side is in danger of getting ground down. I think we’re perilously close to losing the Message to the tools we’ve used to get people to hear the message. We’re in danger of becoming all fluff and no substance.
This concerns me for one very important reason. It’s possible to go to church every Sunday for your entire life and still go to Hell.
But man, oh man, was the music rockin’.
*For the purposes of this list, “church” is the building and all the activities that take place inside it. It’s analogous to the Temple of the Old Testament. The proper definition of “church” is the whole of Christendom (that is, all the people who are Christians form the church), but that’s not the common usage. Show of hands, who thought of the church as the people vice the building when I started my list? I thought so. That’s why I left out humanitarian efforts like feeding the poor and clothing the naked. Those are things that Christians should be doing, but not necessarily the purpose of the building-church.
Comments
All kidding aside, you make a good point and state it well. I totally agree.
Except I'd be a little more narrow about it.
There was a discussion on one of the mommy blogs about "resurrection cookies." It sounded sacriligious, bu you know what? I've never liked the idea of Christian this, christian that, christian everything...t-shirts, stores, etc.
There are exceptions to this, but the culture of Christianity is offensive to me.
Most people are human. Christ didn't come for all this "stuff". He came for regular folk.
A minister I know expresses worship as "the opportunity to touch God, or be touched by God". This could be through music, or teaching, or smell or imagery. The great thing about this idea is that you can still be touched by God even when you are in a negative place. It also broadens out the nature of collective worship, in that, we don't all have to be collectively in the same mood or place in order to worship together.
Anyway, enough wittering already.
Yeah, I laughed when I wrote point 2 as well.
MM,
Christian culture has two positive points as I see it:
1. It can serve as a witness tool.
2. It can serve as a constant reminder to the wearer/owner that God is all around and that praying might not be a bad idea.
Sadly, it often takes the place of God. "I'm a Christ, look at my shirt," instead of, "I'm a Christ, look at my life."
Brian,
There's a popular Christian worship song in the states that talks about how we can worship God in everything we do, that we don't need snappy music to do it. On a sad note, I don't think many people listen to the lyrics of that song as it's especially catchy.