Tonight was great and it will be one of those nights that I will never forget. Kind of the opposite side of the spectrum from a few nights ago with the accident, but either way so far this week is going to be an unforgettable week. I went out to a local bar with Joe and Darryl and over some beer and nachos we just talked. Then we drove around downtown Sarnia for another hour and talked some more. For those of you that don’t know, Darryl is my roommate and one of my best friends that I’ve grow up with for the last eight years. Joe is my friend who is a youth director out in Calgary. He originally came as our youth pastor in Sarnia and through that our friendship grew. We get to see each other two or three times a year. So it’s always enjoyable to spend time with him seeing as he is one of the most influential people in my life.
It is the most encouraging thing in the entire world to know that there are other people in the world with the same dreams, passions and feelings as you. It is awesome to know that you are not alone with how you feel and that there are others that are willing to go to the lengths as you are for that belief. To be able to talk and see people nod in agreement and hear people say ‘yes’ can be quite exciting. While we were talking, and there are a million things I could write about that will eventually come out, we strayed into the topic of preaching and the modern entertainment industry we call church.
Church has turned into a once a week event that we attend instead of being the community of believers Christ called it. Think about it. When I ask you how was church you will say something about the worship, and the message and the special guest artists singer. When did church become a service? When did church become something we attend or watch? When did church cease being a community of believers and a body of children of God? When was church compressed down to a once a week event that we go to?
Worship has become hype and the quality of music defines the performance. A ‘good’ worship service can be viewed by (at least in the Pentecostal circle) how many people were ‘into it’ (which usually consists of raising hands, kneeling, jumping and closing eyes). The message is defined by how good it made you feel when you walk away and how exciting and passionate the preacher was. Church is rated between boring and entertaining. Most people don’t go to church because it’s boring. The church has become the entertainment of the Christian and ceased to be a helping hand to the world. Church was tonight. When Joe, Darryl and I sat around a bar over drinks and nachos a little piece of the church had come together. The whole concept of church is completely destroyed, and we need to bring it back.
Why do you go to church? Think about it. Write down the reasons on a piece of paper and look them over. Maybe post them on a comment on this entry. Then write down why we should go to church, or should we even at all? Is church, the way it is today, something that God commands us to go to? Or did he have something else in mind. As time moves forward I’m going to expand on these ideas of church, and my interpretation of what the church should be and how it should come together. I’m interested on all your comments though and together we can come and try to come to grips with what Christ had in mind when he started all of this.
dude i think you’re so right, we should drink beer in church. Ok now to get serious i think that you have a very valid and important point about the function of church. but it is also necissary to see that we are called to come together in a church “service” to worship. it’s all about contextualization, we need church services to accomodate the massive amounts of christians who are commanded in the bible to come together in communal worship. This does not mean that we should be rating a church service by how the song or preaching made us feel but it is an important element to a vital christian walk. also i do believe very strongly that there are christian churches that have the community outside a sunday church service because i go to one. my school, my job, and my church are all integrated into one body where i am nurished spiritually throught first CRC of Hamilton, i am nurished mental through Redeemer University and i have my physical and monetary needs met through a job i got because i am dutch and part of the CRC church. so i think that i agree with you there needs to be reform in many churches, i’m not excluding mine, but i think it is unfair to say that all churches have it wrong, i believe that it is the more traditional churches that are sicking to community and the outreach churches are loosing that community be catering to a secural society who has been born into an age of entertainment being the highest form of good. Down with our view of catering church to the masses and we will regain our identity as a church of fellowship
You do have a good point, one I’ve been noticing off and on for a while.
When people say “I didn’t like that worship service today, the music was dry, the speaker was boring and I just wasn’t interested,” our first instinct should be to say, “Who cares? We weren’t worshipping you!” No of course that can be overly harsh and I would never say that to someone’s face. But the point is there. I think the purpose of what we now call the “church service”, (which is really the weekly assembling of the saints) is the praising of God and being edified by the teachers of the assembly, as well as, I think, to be re-energized by God through communion and/or brought into fellowship by baptism (of course this only happens once for any given individual, not weekly). I think you’re dead on in saying the assembling of the saints has turned into weekly entertainment. True worship is acknowledging the worth of something (“worth-ship”), and when we put so much focus on the worth/value of entertaining ourselves, we end up worshipping the process of worship instead of the Creator and Redeemer of the Universe. A sad thing indeed.