"Always remember, when somebody comes up with something new,
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God gave the first Christians." -- Dr. Matthew McMahon, aPuritansMind.com

 

24 January, 2007   comments: (0) Today's Pragmatism   Churching an Entertainment Culture - Part 4 Gary Lamb is a pastor-friend of Perry Noble's who likewise relies upon entertainment-based church services. On his blog last week he wrote "God has called us to do whatever it takes to reach this community and we will stop at nothing to see that accomplished". He shares this testimony of one of his churchgoers: "Gary cracked me up, my kids loved it and the band was OFF THE HOOK" and "Anyone who likes and plays 80's [metal music] in a service is number one in my book!". With things like humor and rock music being cited, it leaves us wondering about the reasons why some churches are rejected in favor of other more entertaining churches. What value, if any, is being placed on correct biblical teaching, sound doctrine, and a pursuit of God based on who He really is? In this post, our look at entertainment driven church growth continues. This post is part 4 in a special series by guest contributor Scott Oliver. I've invited Scott to write an analysis of the views expressed by innovative church pastor and conference speaker Perry Noble. Scott is a fellow "refugee" of a seeker centered church, and a long time reader of Old Truth. He has immediate family members who serve as a seminary professor and a pastor. Scott's article continues from part 3 . . . Third, Perry Noble attempts to use the fact that his church has experienced growth, which he attributes to his church's use of entertainment, to prove his contention that on a macro level that all churches need to add or increase the entertainment in church services. But he fails to look or reveal additional data that is available from the reports that indicates what is happening on a micro level for churches like his. In his post he goes into a diatribe about people who come to his church but reject it based on personal preference. Now some would call me a heretic for holding this view. They say, "you are just giving people what they want...and I would never some to a church like yours because I don't like it!" (I have heard that so many times that it isn't funny–BUT–just for "entertainment" purposes, let's look at that statement!) "I would not come to your church because I don't like it." Translation, "I AM going to go to a church where I do like it...where I like the music...where I like the pastor...where I like the way things are done!" I ask you–isn't this "entertainment?" Isn't this going to a place where you like what is going on? If this is YOUR mentality when it comes to your church...then why judge others for adapting the same mindset when a church in town does something different than you? HYPOCRITE!!! I agree that the reasons listed by this individual for choosing or rejecting a church are not valid since there are actual Biblical reasons to evaluate one. But Perry amazingly deals with this individual on a superficial basis. His response is essentially "If you want to do church your way then do not complain if we want to do church our way." One can almost hear the nah, nah, nah in the conversation. Perry doesn't tell the person, well here is the Scriptural basis for our beliefs; he just has an argument on juvenile level. Therefore we can see that there is little doctrinal foundation to either of the combatant's beliefs. We will consider this in more detail at a later time. But in this discussion Perry (I believe inadvertently) reveals the fact that people are church shopping and they are doing it to his church. We need to go back to the data and it reveals the following: " While America's churches as a whole did not keep up with population growth from 1994 to 2004, the country's smallest (attendance 1-49) and largest churches (2,000-plus) did ...During that period, the smallest churches grew 16.4%; the largest grew 21.5%, exceeding the national population growth of 12.2%. But mid-sized churches (100-299)--the average size of a Protestant church in America is 124--declined 1%. Since mid-size churches are decreasing with small and large (mega) church attendance increasing, even though overall church attendance is decreasing, this indicates that we in fact do have the phenomena of church shopping. What has been suspected for some time is confirmed in the data. People are flowing from mid-sized churches to larger churches for the programs and entertainment. We need to reiterate Perry's previous claim was that we needed to add entertainment to reach the lost but in reality what is happening is that the people, for the most part, being attracted to churches like his are the ones that were attending and abandoned the established churches. Sure enough the report confirms this: Barna states "The data shows the number of unchurched people is unchanged--76 million adults," (All the entertainment out there in the American church landscape has not been performing as advertised.) "The best way I can describe it is that a lot of people believe they're upgrading to first class when they go to a larger church," Olson says. "It seems highly likely that some of the people in those mid-sized churches are the ones leaving and going to the larger churches." "There are multiple expectations on mid-sized churches that they can't meet--programs, dynamic music, quality youth ministries," he says. "We've created a church consumer culture." So we have Perry complaining about the church consumerism exhibited by an attendee in his diatribe while he himself in the same post is arguing to modify the church services even more to create the exact environment that creates the expectations for the church consumer mentality. He does not even consider that he is creating the people that are frustrating him. Again we see the characteristics of the delusion of the CGM/SS (Seeker Sensitive) crowd, they believe that the "numbers do not lie" unless they do not confirm their viewpoint. We of the Reformed persuasion do not have this struggle. We search the Scriptures to determine what it commands us to do and we follow it. If someone doesn't like it we endeavor to show them the where and why scripture commands it to be done this way and leave it to God to convict them. Fourth, we need to review what is happening with smaller churches that Perry disparages in his post which he conveniently omits the data for. The report's data indicates that smaller church's attendance is increasing and offers the following reasons: "As for why the smallest churches have kept up, Shawn McMullen, author of the newly released Unleashing the Potential of the Smaller Church (Standard), notes that smaller churches cultivate an intimacy not easily found in larger churches. "In an age when human interaction is being supplanted by modern technology, many younger families are looking for a church that offers community, closeness and intergenerational relationships," he says." These are possible reasons but they are superficial reasons and not one true followers of Christ should espouse. But what is important to note is that both the Outreach magazine report and Perry Noble come up with superficial not spiritual or theological reasons for the qualitative changes in the numbers. They are all looking for the silver bullet to give them the key to expanding God's Kingdom. Could it be that what has happened is that the liberal theology of the 19th and 20th century polluted the mainline denominations. The sufficiency of the Bible and doctrine was assaulted to the point that a generation of church goers lost their enthusiasm and doctrinal base. This left them rudderless and subject to the winds of this age "when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear" (2 Tim 4:3) leading those to decide to jump from the mid-size churches of their parents onto the CGM/SS large church train. They were attracted by the novelty, experience, programs, excitement and entertainment that are contained in churches such as Perry's. Then after a period of time they have become disillusioned with the CGM/SS large churches and they jumped from them to smaller churches. Then as the people circulate between the churches some just opt out. They have seen, experienced and tried all the programs, entertainment and shows and the novelty has worn off because there was no supernatural conviction in their hearts. We do have a Scriptural precedence for this concept in Christ's Parable of the Sower. (Matt 13:1-23, Mark 4:1-20, Luke 8:1-15). Jesus states that the following things will affect the depraved human hearts of the non-elect, trials, trouble, persecution, life's worries, riches and pleasure these are all things that cause one to fall away and be unfruitful. I would like to conclude this post with the statement that we should not let modern statistical methods and data collection influence Christ's church even though the numbers disprove Perry Noble's thesis "entertainment is necessary" to increase or maintain church attendance. I say this even after spending a great deal of time reviewing the statistical numbers for the state of the American church and observing the CGM/SS filter that Perry and others use on them. Although Perry's and the CGM/SS proponents' enthusiasm can be contagious we need to ensure that we are not being walked (sometimes run) into error. The lost do not attend church for the very reason that they are lost and reject God in their fallen state. Jesus states in Matt 28:19-20 that we are to disciple, baptize and teach, that is the method we are to use to introduce them to the gospel. Enticements and gimmicks are not mentioned or included. People change churches for any number of reasons, they can be Godly reasons or to satisfy their own wicked desires. One can easily see from the statistics that trying to put your finger on an exact cause is subject to many factors, not the least of which is our own sinful desire to interpret the numbers to our preconceived notions. Therefore we should not tailor our church services to the superficial but to the requirements of God and his Scriptures. Jesus states that He is the rock that He will build his church on in Matt 16:18 and the gates of Hell will not overcome it. His church is to be a constant and a refuge (Psa 59). He also states that the world was going to detest the truth in John 15:18-19 "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. It is impossible for mere man to make the world embrace that which they hate. But if we trust in God and the Gospel as Peter did in Acts 2 then "all whom the Lord our God will call" will come to Him and if it His will real revival will occur. Some people such as Jim and I, went to a larger CGM/SS church but after Scriptural study and prayer we realized it is not Biblical. We then moved to churches that met the Biblical model and the doctrines from Scripture. In our cases it was smaller growing Reformed churches. They are churches that trust God and the power of the Gospel but not the devices of man. Whether a Church meets the Biblical model is what should determine whether or not we attend a given church. We should not select or model one based on what we want to hear either in programs, music, liturgy, latest Christian fad, etc but what the Triune God commands for He is the one that is the true audience in church and the object of our worship. If you missed the earlier posts in this series, you can read them here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.603   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism