Church?

I was thinking about something recently. I was thinking about how stupid church goers can be today. Today’s “contemporary” evangelical pastors think they’re so smart. They set up huge stages with “worship bands” and choreographed lights and have little skits to keep people interested. They perform an act and make God’s church into a theater and his ministers into little more than jesters. The pastor will speak to everyone from a seated position up at a little coffee table so that even in crowds filled with hundreds of people, each person is meant to feel as if they are sitting right across for him at some hip new overpriced coffee shop. It’s all just a little too hygienic for me. Where is the reverence? Where is the room for people to interact or discuss?

Near my home town in Kansas a church called Grace Point is the perfect example. If you go to their webpage you’ll find all the same kinds of images you’d see at any other “contemporary” church website. It has catchy slogans that don’t really mean anything like “Church for people who don’t like church” (in reality this means a gathering of believers that don’t like believers gathering). It shows a causally dressed minister who talks about “relevance” and “authentic community” and basically any other buzz words that happen to be floating around this year.

Now I’m sure that this church has some wonderful things going on and I’m sure that pastors like these truly believe in what they are doing but I just can’t understand it.

What has happened to us? I wonder what people in third world churches think when they see this? What is the difference between these mega-churches and old cathedrals built with gold and marble statues? Do people really look at this from their place in secular society and say, “wow, look at that light show… Jesus must have died for my sins”? Why do ministers keep feeding the people exactly what we think they want and nothing of what they need? Does church really need to be a “celebration service” every week? What about Good Friday? Is there no room for pain in our churches today? Do we really need church to be fun and entertaining all the time, cause to be honest I think if I wanted to be entertained I’d much rather go see a movie than go see a heavily diluted presentation of Christianity.

If you are reading this and you haven’t been to church in a long time then my advice to you is to go to the smallest church you can find. Find a mainline church that has intensely thought through its worship or find a new emerging church that is attempting to do the same for a new generation (one where you have input). But whatever you do –stay far, far away from personality cults and churches with a lot of money to spend and seemingly nothing better to do with it then build onto their already gigantic sanctuaries or hire specialty pastors for every conceivable type of person. If the church you go to has a minister for bisexual Asian, non-English speaking immigrants with missing toes, get out now!