A few years ago I was asked to help with worship at a new church start. The first few weeks were cool…we met in a neighborhood clubhouse. We simply sat in a big circle, did worship with a guitar and hand-drum…and we engaged in conversation. These weeks were rich as the church dreamed, discussed, conversed about who they were and who they wanted to be….then it happened…as Caleb Crider says..we broke the sound system rule and everything changed.
The church spent $20k on sound, lighting and media and suddenly the circle was replaced with rows….the intimate worship replaced with another modern worship band with a hot worship leader (that would be me!)….and the conversation replaced with a sermon. The intimate conversations they had engaged in were replaced with 3 points and a light show. And with that they left missional behind and moved towards being yet another church plant, meeting in a school with relevant preaching, modern worship and great coffee. Another cookie cutter attractional church.
Why are so many churches so quick to leave behind the intimacy for a show? Why leave the conversation for another sermon? Why do we who follow such a creative God find ourselves being so un-creative in the way we view church?
{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
You should asked your group this before you spent money on sound, lightening…
People like show, theater… in that surrounding they receive and don’t have to give anything except their money…
Natasa,
I wasn’t part of the real staff…just a freelance worship leader building their worship team until they could find a long-term person.
It’s that intimacy that we have in our little “church” on board my ship. In a few days, we’ll be together again for a few Bible studies and only one sermon. It will be low-key, no flash…but effective. I have no idea why more churches don’t do it that way, except maybe that there isn’t much room for growth that way. It’s the only thing I can really think of.
Wow. Too true.
too bad yall couldnt muster up 130 mill…
http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4536&Itemid=53
Churches leave intimacy behind because they are mimicking the culture which says: more is better. Capitalism expects more profits, materialism expects more goods, technology expects change in the form of planned obsolescence. We’re expecting quick change, and this has crept into church culture. Besides, pastors are encouraged to emulate this growth when they hear the success stories of Mark Driscoll or Rob Bell. We don’t celebrate the mediocre or the patiently consistent in Christian circles, and abandoning intimacy is the result.
I am mentoring a church planter in our community. His biggest struggle is to resist the pressure from “church plant seminars”, etc. to “find your model”. Culture has a lot to do with it, but our leaders are the ones who have been influenced and are pressuring the local planter. What this leads to is trying to reached churched people with a “better” church. My advice is always to look at the lost, they don’t know what church is “supposed” to look like, they just want authentic relationships with people who truly care about them. I call it the Driscoll model, dang it, now we have another model
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Well said everyone. I’m afraid we’ve allowed the need to be bigger and better to influence how we do church. Christians seem to almost be afraid of creativity…afraid of sticking out. We steal secular slogans and twist them “Do the Jew”….”God’s Gym” for our T-shirts. And we do stupid knock-offs like “CSI:Jerusalem” for sermons series. We do the same with our church planting.
It’s a shame that so many church planters choose to conform and go after quick results. The other shame is that the average Christian is content to hop around from church to church looking for their next spiritual hit. Which seemingly rewards the feeble attempts of the next “big” pastor and his trendy, attractional church (until the next hip, trendy church comes along and they all jump ship).
“The sound-system rule” – that is a good one. Anytime the gathering of Christ’s body results in one-way communication it doesn’t become more. I just don’t think Jesus said where “two or more are gathered in my name” you will need a sound system. Good post. I’ll be thinking of this one for days.