In the last year I joined a new health club that opened across from my office. It's called Lifetime Fitness and its truly one of the nicest 'gyms' I've ever belonged to. They have everything, squash, two pools indoor and outdoor, personal training, all kinds of equipment, all kinds of lessons from ballet to marshal arts and even a restaurant. The building is large and modern, the atmosphere upbeat and designed to appeal to the senses of the upscale community in which the gym was built. Greeters are at the front as you enter to call you by name and wish you a 'good workout'. I've enjoyed exercising there very much.
One day last week it dawned on me as I was walking out of the gym after being told to 'have a nice week' by the man who works in the locker room that the only thing Lifetime Fitness is missing is a worship service on Sunday. Add that one thing and you'd never know the difference between it and any number of 'evangelical' churches across America today.
Of course, I don't expect to see a worship service added to the menu of options at Lifetime any time soon. They seem to understand their calling. Would that that was true of many in the church today as well.
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2 comments:
I've heard it said that in the current cultural context, American Christians have to earn the right to be heard. Our peers are far less interested in what we have to say about Jesus than they are in what we do in the name of Jesus. I think that churches who are more similar to gymns, coffeehouses and danceclubs may be in the infantile stages of learning to re-connect to the unbelievers of America.
Then again, I could be wrong.
Amtog, thanks for your comment. The issue I would have with that concept is that it's foreign to scripture. Nowhere are we told to 'earn the right to be heard.' We're told to go into all the world and share the Gospel. 'Earn the right to be heard' is the catch-phrase of late 20th early 21st century American churches who have no stomach for the straightforward preaching of the Word to lost and dying sinners.
We don't win people to Christ by entertaining them, they are won when the Holy Spirit in concert with the preaching of the Word opens their eyes to the truth.
In all Paul's instructions to churches in the New Testament, never are they told to appeal to the 'felt needs' or fleshly desires of people in order to earn a hearing for the Word. They are simply told to preach the Word in season and out. The churches in America would do well to return to that model and leave the entertainment to the professionals in my opinion.
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