The Entertaining Church

 

As the music worship team finished the last song, the guest speaker for this Sunday morning walked onto the platform. He laid his Bible on the pulpit and began with this statement. "Good morning. Your pastor has asked me to come and keep you entertained this morning." His remark was intentional since he knew the pastor very well and they had been friends for years. The guest speaker knew this church was based on sound Biblical doctrine and never considered any of their services entertainment. He was looking for an opening reaction from them in order to set the tone for his message. He was preparing to deliver a message concerning a serious issue in many local churches around the country. The theme of this message is that the church has become a place for entertainment instead of spiritual feeding.

Paul, while giving Timothy instruction on pastoring and leading the church, gave him this instruction,

  Work hard so you can present yourself to God and receive his approval. Be a good worker, one who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly explains the word of truth.       2 Tim 2:15-16   NLT

 Paul is telling Timothy to do God's work in a way in which God would approve of him and to correctly explain the truth of God's word. This sounds like simple and easy instruction to follow. But in today's church, in many churches, that instruction has been cast aside. The influence of the world has crept into the church or in many cases, it has stampeded into the church. The goal of success is in the numbers of people who attend. It's the size of the building and as much glamor and attractive decor as possible outside and inside the building. You have to have worldly type marketing schemes in place to attract the people and get them inside the building.

Once they are inside, there must be an agenda which is pleasing to the people for at least an hour. You can't afford to lose their attention; so, you must be able to keep them entertained. There must be an attraction or attractions. Hillsong Church was excellent at this agenda. Their music has been very popular among Christians and of course, they always had a very cool guy as a pastor. The church in New York City was a prime example of this type of agenda. Great music which attracted many young people and a really cool guy for a pastor. Well know celebrities attended and there was a special VIP seating section specifically for them down front.

The money was pouring in, and people kept coming back. It was the Sunday morning place to be. It was like a Sunday morning concert followed by this cool guy prancing around the platform saying what they all wanted to hear. It was great Sunday morning entertainment until the cool guy ruined everything and decided to have an affair with another woman. Mr. Cool Guy fell from worldly grace and the agenda came crashing down.

This is not a critique of Hillsong, but they are the perfect example of what the problem is in the church today concerning entertainment verses Biblical teaching. The thinking is that they cannot bore people by teaching the truth of the Bible. No, people won't come back for that, so we have to have a way to keep them coming back. So, we'll entertain them. There have been other ways of entertaining people on a Sunday morning or Wednesday evening. 

 Pastors and elders have created many different stunts in an effort to attract and keep people in the seats and money in the coffers. And that's what it's all about; if you keep them coming back, you will keep the money pouring in. One pastor and his wife spent all day Saturday on the roof of the church on a bed to introduce the beginning of a series on marriage the next morning. Another jumped out of an airplane and sky dived into the church parking lot on a Sunday morning to introduce a sermon series on the return of Jesus. Does Jesus really need that kind of stunt to teach people about His return?

So, whatever happened to, "Good morning. This morning we are going to be continuing our study through the book of....." Whatever happened to telling the people about Jesus? Whatever happened to yielding to the Holy Spirit to guide and direct the morning or evening service. Whatever happened to trusting in God to provide for the ministry? I remember the TV preachers years ago before there was Twitter, Facebook or Tic Toc and You Tube. At the end of every show, they would beg for money to keep their ministry available to the audience. My thought was always, "If God wants you on TV, He will provide the funds for that."

Churches today have become big business and operate like competing corporations. They have given in to the way of the world and its schemes to draw people in. As I said, the priorities have become the amount of money they can get from the people they are deceiving. These people are attending the biggest, the most popular and the most wrong church in town. But they are there and they are seen and that's most important to many of them. The dues here are cheaper than the country club and they get the same personal satisfaction. But they are hearing nothing about Jesus and that will cost them their eternal life. They have been fooled into believing they are checking off all the right boxes to get into heaven. But they have never been told how to be saved or why they need salvation. But their social card is full and being fulfilled.

Now, not every local church is like this. But there are just too many that are. Not every local church depends on worldly schemes and worldly agendas to attract people. Not all mega churches operate this way. There are numerous mega churches who teach God's word and are filled with people who want to hear about Jesus and His word and how it applies to their lives. This is what keeps them coming back; the large church has a pastor who teaches the truth of God's word. He doesn't sugar coat it or water it down. And this is what is needed to bring people in and for them to hear the gospel and get saved and begin to grow in Jesus. The entertainment is learning more about God. It's getting to know Him more and hearing His word taught correctly.

It doesn't have to be a mega church. The size of the church body or building has nothing to do with how God can use a church, a ministry or a person. There are numerous churches around this country who have an attendance of one to two hundred people and are thriving spiritually and do not struggle to pay their bills or the pastor's salary. They are teaching and preaching God's word and the people keep coming back. That reminds me of the church invite. There are many Christians who will invite unsaved friends to church and the friend never accepts the invitation. The Christian can't seem to understand why his/her friend won't come to church. The answer is church is the last place an unsaved person wants to be. It means nothing to them and will be totally uncomfortable through the whole service. They have no interest in church and no reason to be there. They need to be told about Jesus. They need to know what Jesus has done in your personal life. Give the unsaved friend the opportunity to know Jesus and give them a reason to want to come to church.

 

It's the same thing that applies to the local church. Don't entertain them with gimmicks and music and cool guy stories and antics. Tell them about Jesus and why people need Him in their lives. Jesus and the salvation He provides is the most important thing anyone can tell anyone who doesn't know. Being entertained and making people feel good on a Sunday morning will never allow them to know Jesus and His salvation. Entertaining the crowd on Sunday morning in a building called a church is nothing more than a waste of God's time. 

 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.   Rom 12:2

---Bill Petite 

Once Upon a Time in a Church

 

Once upon a time, there was a church, and this was a happy church. But as the years went by, this church was overwhelmed by the way the pastor treated those who attended. Now, this is a fairy tale based on fact but does not have a happy ending. This church grew into existence from a small Bible study group. In the early years, the small group never realized that one day God's plan would be for them to be the ground floor of a local church.

As the Bible study group grew in size, God began to steer it in the direction of a church start up and the excitement began to grow. It would become an affiliate of a large church movement which had been trying for years to start a church in the small town where the group met. The Bible study leader and teacher was leading this group in the study of God's word and what the group needed to know concerning a church startup or as some refer to as a church plant.

The Lord was leading the way and there was support from a parent type church. Leaders and pastors from this parent church supported this group with counseling and advice and materials in the effort to get off the ground and open the doors for the first time for this church. As the day approached and everything seemed to be in place for the first Sunday morning service, everyone was involved in the preparation. You could feel the excitement in the air as the last minute preparations were completed that Saturday before the first Sunday service. 

When the dust had settled on that Saturday, there were three leaders, or elders, in place. The senior pastor was Doug and the other two elders were Ron and Liam. All three were sincerely committed to do the work which God had prepared them for. There was a music worship team in place, teachers for all the children's Sunday School classes and a format which the elders had all agreed on.

The first month was a true blessing; people were being saved following every Sunday morning message. It was so obvious that the Lord was directly in the center of this ministry. The elders got to the point they were expecting people to get saved following every service forever. But the numbers began to fall off and that was to be expected. The church was vibrant and spiritually healthy. This church continued to maintain its spiritual growth and growth in numbers. But after a period of about two years, red flags began to pop up.

The church had obtained a property which was more than adequate in size for their use. The first red flag appeared on a Sunday evening when Liam arrived for evening service and was told that Ron and his wife had left the church. There had been a dispute over something but no one except Doug and his wife knew what it was. The church had a policy which did not allow any new comer to be involved in ministry until they had attended at least six months and then were interviewed by an elder.  But Doug repeatedly broke this policy and his poor judge of character resulted in damage of some sort. There was a keyboard player who walked across the street from his house to the church and announced he could play the keyboard and wanted to know if he could play with the band. Doug was thrilled to have a key board player and without knowing the man for more than a few minutes, invited him to join in. Two weeks later the man was nowhere to be seen and when Liam asked about him, one of the members of the worship team told him the man was in jail for his second DUI.

Many years later, another major mistake in character judgement would cause the loss of a long time church leader who was always committed to God's work in the church. Doug, once again, allowed a couple, who was unknown to anyone in the small church, to come in and begin to take over leadership of ministries within the church. They began accusing a church leader/elder of terrible things which led to him having to leave the church. When he was approached by Doug and his wife, he denied the accusations. Doug's wife immediately placed a binder on the table in which she had recorded every false accusation against the elder. Doug even accused the elder of trying to steal his church away from him which was another false accusation. It was later discovered the couple had been doing this in many churches in the area and it had all been lies.

But this is getting far ahead of the story. Following seven years as an elder and Bible teacher as well as one who maintained the property and did so many other things and ministries, Liam terminated his position as elder. It was like God told him one Sunday morning when he got up to write a letter of resignation and he did. He handed it to Doug following Sunday morning service. Two years later he was gone from the church and starting his own ministry plans as directed by the Lord.

As the years went on, there would be many others ran off and mistreated by Doug and his wife. People were scolded and yelled at in front of others in the church. It was always over something silly and not even worthy of mention. Members of the music worship team were read the riot act over silly things like where they stood on the platform or they were simply standing where Doug wanted to stand (actually, he had no business being a part of the worship team).Some of these people left the church right then during practice. Doug would even berate people from the pulpit during his teachings. He would yell and scream at them like a madman. 

It soon became evident that Doug had to be involved in many of the ministries within the church. He even insisted on being a teacher at the Women's Retreats. This is not wrong if it is a one time thing and he is asked to do that but his wife was the women's leader and together they insisted on being the ruling factor in this once vibrant and healthy church. Doug's wife was also a major distraction in any service. Many times she would stand at the rear of the sanctuary and as Doug was preparing to start his teaching, she would interrupt just to say something which had no importance at all. When they were approached by an elder concerning these disruptions and her heavy influence in the pulpit ministry, they denied there was any problem with this.   

Many times, people worked hard at establishing ministries in this church only to have them taken away and given to one of Doug's family members. Of course, this was done after the ministry was in place and the work was finished. People were accused of doing things which they never had done; youth were accused of things such as doing drugs on the property or causing trouble in classes which they were not guilty of. Parents were beside themselves over these false accusations. Young women and even those who were mothers were read the riot act over the way they were dressed on a Sunday morning. There was never anything wrong with the way they were dressed unless the dress code said they had to dress like the Amish. And, there was no dress code, at least not a written one.

Early on, Doug insisted he would not marry a couple until they had successfully completed a very long counseling agenda set by him and his wife. One young couple endured the entire counseling agenda and when they were finished, Doug refused to marry them. But in recent years, he has married couples who had been living together and with barely no counseling at all. He also married an 18 year old women to an 81 year old man. Without saying, there is something extremely wrong there!

As I said earlier, there is no happy ending to this very dismal fairy tale. This once vibrant and spiritual healthy church had an attendance on Sunday mornings of about 150 people. Recently it was reported the attendance now is approximately 25 people. The truth is Doug ran off more people than the sanctuary can hold. In other words, if you counted all the people he has ran off over the years this church has existed, the sanctuary would not be able to hold them all. Doug is now in his advanced senior years and probably should not be in any pulpit or be serving in any type of Christian ministry. And actually, he probably should have never been a pastor. He has never shown any Christ like compassion to most he has pastored but his biggest problem has always been his huge ego and his temper.

Now, I'm sure you know by now this is not really a fairy tale; it is a horror story and especially for those who had to live through it. For those who were smart enough to know this is not the way to pastor or conduct God's ministry work and left, they saved themselves a lot of misery and heartache. For those who believed God had them there for a reason and stayed as long as they could, have learned some very important lessons. Why would God allow this to go on for so many years? The answer is unknown to us at this time. But early on, there were people brought to Jesus by this ministry and we have to remember that. But we must also remember that the egos of men and their self centeredness, will always tear down the good work which the Lord has put in place.

There are so many other things which should never be done in ministry concerning this church but it would consume volumes. And the question still remains, "Why would the Lord allow this to go on for so many years and why do good Christians tolerate it?" Maybe these people have never received proper Biblical teaching and simply don't know any better. The answer to these questions remain unanswered. But prayer is a mighty tool and this church needs a ton of it.

So, the fairy tale over time became a horror story for many and the good work of God was destroyed by a man who placed himself on the throne and placed God at his side as a relic. 

--Bill Petite