Josiah Concept Ministries

The center of any worship service should be God.

How elementary is that?  Yet, churches today are missing the point by putting on an entertainment extravaganza designed to engage people and draw in ever larger crowds.  Meanwhile, no actual discipleship is taking place.  But that’s okay, because the tithes grow and the pastors get to turn in big numbers of baptisms and attendance figures to the home office.  The church is growing and everyone is happy.

But the focus on God just isn’t there.  His commandment to disciple people is swept under the rug, in favor of the command to evangelize.

I’m opposed to turning the gospel into an entertainment package, because it leads to what I described above.  But, there is a delicate balance to maintain.  God has given us incredibly diverse music styles, pronounced cultural differences, and short attention spans.  To use these things in worshiping Him would glorify Him, I believe.

To have a nontraditional worship service targeted to a specific demographic, provided it doesn’t replace the usual worship service, probably isn’t a bad thing.  So long as the focus remains on God.  The balance that one has to maintain is to design the worship service with God as the center, but design it in a way that appeals to the target audience.  A growing number of churches are doing just this for men.  I haven’t heard of any of these services in my area, so I can’t say I’ve ever been to one, that they are bad, or that the focus is off of God.

The teaching seems right on.  Men have a tendency to open up better to other men, especially about that which challenges us all: lust.  Rock music, a message that targets men, and encouragement to return to the traditional service with your family.  But the basketball theme and a “shot clock” for the sermon may be a bit much.

I used to be a “whatever works” kind of guy, but now that I’ve become a more critical theology student, I know that the axiom “What you win them with is what you win them to” is 100% true.  This is what I hate about watered-down gospel presentations, God Is My Buddy theologies, and the growing trend of not preaching about sin or judgment.  Yes, Jesus died for me, but why was that necessary?  And, how many mega-church attendees out of 100 could tell me why?

My concern is that as church services trend more toward supporting the demographics to grow numbers, will sin and judgment preaching take a further back seat to rock music and shot clocks?  Or will these things merely aid in the presentation of the gospel as outlined in Scripture?  We must pray to God that these things will aid in the preaching of His word.  We must also pray that God will limit the influence of those preachers who leave Him and His message of repentance and salvation on the back burner, favoring the love and “warm fuzzy” presentations.