A Revivial?

I’ve written here before about experiences we’ve had at churches in our area due to our children’s participation in some of their extra-curricular activities. However, the event we attended this week took the cake.

It was one of the shallowest, most disjointed attempts at entertainment evangelism I’ve ever in my life witnessed. In fact it was difficult for my wife and I to sit through the entire thing and, truth be known, at the first tactful moment we could we fled.

It’s one of those cases were a man had a talent and, like so many believers today, felt the best way to serve God was to turn his talent into a “ministry” instead of just ministering while pursuing the talent to the best of his ability and to the glory of God. I was reminded of the quote from Martin Luther about vocation, specifically in this case concerning a tailor:

“If he is a Christian tailor, he will say: I make these clothes because God has bidden me do so, so that I can earn a living, so that I can help and serve my neighbor.”

Today of course the tailor would start Stitchers for Christ International (SCI for short and for the stationary), a 501c3 corporation, and go around performing at churches having developed a unique system of sharing the “gospel” using the steps necessary to hem a pair of pants.

The worst part of this particular event, however, was that after NOT sharing anything close to the gospel for 45 minutes (my wife commented that we knew more about the presenter than about Jesus at the end of it all) this gentleman asked everyone to close their eyes and “pray the prayer.” Afterwards those who had “asked Jesus into their hearts” (mostly children) were bidden to come forward where several pastors, presumably at least a few of whom had been to seminary, took their information and welcomed them into the family of God. It was easy believe-ism at its worst, have them pray the prayer and give them immediate assurance. The kids were even told this was their “spiritual birthday” and to always remember it. At the end we were told by one of the adults (I’m not sure if he was a pastor) that we’d witnessed a “revival.”

As they were leaving each child was given a pamphlet. I took a look at my son’s on the way out. “Do you Have a Heart that’s Happy?” it said on the front. Halfway expecting to see Joel Osteen’s picture when I opened the cover, I read:

“It’s your choice whether you go to HEAVEN.” (Presumably the Holy Spirit has something to do with it but He’s not mentioned at all and is definitely not the deciding factor!)

After an example of “the prayer” it said “You are now saved if you prayed the prayer to God, and you were really serious.” Serious as defined by what standard? Again, it’s totally dependent upon me, if my frame of mind is correct when I pray the prayer then I’m saved.

The sad thing to me is that a man who claims to have read the Bible completely through every year for 30 years wrote this stuff and a whole room full of church-goers, some of whom are pastors, thought it was wonderful and that they’d witnessed a revival.

This particular church is by no means alone in this approach. This kind of thing is rampant in modern American evangelicalism. When this is what passes for a revival in our churches, it’s no wonder God doesn’t send the real thing to our land. We wouldn’t recognize it when we saw it.