Posted by
Billy on Wednesday, June 29, 2011 11:06:43 AM
On a recent Sunday, I found myself visiting a Protestant
megachurch. Entering the "worship center" was eerily similar to being ushered
down the aisle of a movie theater: floor lighting, padded chairs, visual effects
shown on two large screens, and music over the speaker system.
A band appeared on stage to begin the service with live music. It
was dark, and I thought I heard the audience singing along, but it was
impossible to tell. And although I was seated in the front row, I sensed that
the congregation was almost superfluous to the activity on stage. As in most
forms of entertainment, the audience functioned as passive onlookers,
participating only in an unseen, intensely personal way.
While the band played, song lyrics flashed across the two big
screens, with words like great, God, and high
figuring prominently. The musical performance was outstanding, even if the
vocabulary was extremely limited. If the songs aimed at an emotional response,
they were probably successful, but like so much contemporary worship music, they
lacked any element of substantive teaching.
Immediately after the singing, without any announcement, much less
Paul's words of institution (1 Cor. 11:23-26), the elements of the Lord's Supper
were hurriedly handed around. Again, I was amazed at the blandly efficient
nature of this activity. We could have been passing pretzels and soda pop. No
one offered any guidance whatsoever on the sharing of this critical ordinance or
sacrament. It seemed a strictly vertical encounter between each individual and
God.
(Billy's Thoughts>>>>>
The church world needs to get back to preaching what the word of God teaches not trying to entertain those who come in their doors. The above piece can be found at the
Christianity Today web site right here.)