Truth is ancient; it's grey hairs may make it venerable;
it comes from Him who is the ancient of days. --Thomas Watson

 

20 February, 2007   comments: (0) Today's Worldliness   Church Media Aims For Excellence, Hits Lameness One of the responses to the video that I posted in the Megachurch Jumbotron Challenge, said: "Many [megachurches] believe that God demands excellence in everything we do, not just slapping up a video that looks like it was made 5 years ago". But the question that I have is, "excellence" by who's standards? Could it be that a lot of these churches are a little too optimistic about the world's opinion of what is being shown on their big screens? The sentiment behind that response brings up yet another opportunity to underscore the fact that, whenever the Church tries to compete with the world, on the world's terms, the Church's facsimile ends up coming across as just, lame, to put it mildly. It reminds me of the "Christian night club" that I ran across last year. They wanted to compete with worldly night clubs, by having the same kind of music, pool tables, etc. But their hopes of "this will get the unchurched here so that we can reach out to them" just gets kind of corny when you think of how the place serves no alcohol and closes early on Saturday nights so that people can get to bed early for church the next day. That's not excellence by the world's standards, that's lame to the average unbeliever. The Church is supposed to be something different in this world, not something similar to the world. Here's another example of that lesson, coming from one of the many companies today that exist, to whatever extent, as parasites living off the jumbo screens of today's seeker-centered churches. Ask yourself whether they have achieved "excellence" or just "lameness", in the video clips that they sell these churches. Worldy Excellence World-Imitating Non-Excellence The football player in this video goes around tackling workplace slackers in the office. Note: I'm not saying that you are going to think this video is excellent, but I am saying that the world does. This was a popular Super Bowl commercial several years ago. Click the link below to watch Terrible Terry Tate blow-up lazy office workers: The football player in this video goes around tackling evangelism slackers in the Church. Because the video to the left was a big hit (pun intended) with the world, today that means the church must copy it, and use it to enhance evangelism. Ask yourself: Did the Church's version achieve 'excellence' by the world's standards? Here's a sneak peak at a Martyn Lloyd-Jones excerpt that will appear (in more detail) in future weeks on Old Truth. Although modern churches imagine using these videos to help "get out the message", the reality is - they often attempt to do so through some form of entertainment that is far from worldly "excellence". And as Lloyd-Jones demonstrates, entertainment is not the Church's forte: Do Christian people come together for socials, dances, raffles, dramatic performances, lectures on politics, literature, and sociology? There was nothing like that in the early church. It is not my objective to denounce these things. But I do want to show how far removed they are from the Christian church. You can get all that in the world, and you can get it very much better there. The Christian church makes a fool of herself when she attempts these things--she does them so badly. If you want activities like that, then go and get them organized professionally. But that is not the Christian church. It is a travesty. I do not want to defend Christendom or advocate any particular section of the church or any particular local church. I want to hold before you the pictures of the New Testament church. That is the only church I recognize. Those people did not come to the church to do things like that. And when true revival takes place, those are the first things to go; people lose interest in them. A church that can only exist by resorting to things like that is utterly different from the New Testament church. --Authentic Christianity That's just one of the reasons why I'm not in favor of videos in worship services, though there are other reasons that are even more important than that one. Yes, that even includes the Edwards video that I posted last week, although it was useful for demonstrating the inconsistency in the message that gets presented on most megachurch jumbotrons. Posted by: Jim B.   Link: http://www.oldtruth.com/blog.cfm/id.2.pid.619   Be the first to post a comment about this article        Home  |   About  |  Videos   |  Calvinism