Someone wrote me the other day and asked me a question.
John you always see both sides...tell me what you see in this post.
I have heard so many pastors criticize the modern Christian family's desire to attend churches that have all the 'trimmings'... but I tend to look at it like this, not very many Americans if given the choice, would live without air conditioning in the summer, or hand pull their water from a well four times a day, take the public bus system, sleep on a straw mat on the floor, send their kids to work instead of school, do their laundry in the river or buy the leftovers at the meat market for the weekly meal. We live in a land where luxury has become a thing taken for granted, why do we expect any different from the Sunday morning worshipper? Besides, given the choice, who wouldn't want a coffee bar at church... or more songs than sermons!? Is the modern American Christian out of touch with reality? Chances are, if you own more than one car in your household, you are. But what's the answer for the struggling, small church? Complain about the empty seats, or fill them? What's the choice? Offer Sunday morning childcare and fill a seat, or don't and leave it empty? Hard choices in modern American Christianity. The scriptures say, faith comes by hearing, that is, hearing the Good News of Christ (Rom. 10:17). If the sales rep at AT&T has to do anything possible to get a potential customer in the door, unfortunately, in this commercialized society the modern pastor has to do the same. And comparing your American worshipper to the Chinese worshipper, just doesn't work. Guilt lasts only as long as it takes us to walk out the door and get into our new SUV and go home to our 2000 sq. ft. house and switch on our 72" TV. The only thing that can change the heart, is God. Concentrate on Him, and the Good News He has delivered.
My answer:
The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1 that he wasn’t going to do anything but preach Christ and him crucified. Yet Jesus, when he preached, fed people, performed miracles and everything else to get their attention before he told them anything about God. Or at least while he was telling them.
People’s expectations are different today than before and there is nothing we can do about that. Whether we like it or not, daycare and coffee bars are becoming a norm rather than an extra. I attend a fairly conservative church, yet we have coffee and junk to eat before church (Breakfast for a Buck he calls it) and a fairly contemporary service, along with child-care. In my church I had some of the same things. Good music in a church is not an extra anymore, it is a given, as is multi-media.
Whether it is good or not is beside the point. It is true. Like my wife, it is where we are. How does a small church tap into this? I do not know and spent the past several years before finally kind of giving up trying to figure it out. Maybe going back to the simple church model would be the thing and training people from the bottom up. I don’t know. But I do know that laboring along year after year with none of these resources is hard and is self-defeating. Or at least feels that way. Like trying to push start a dump truck by yourself.
Both sides have a point. To the one it is trying to buy Christians with gimmicks. To the other it is coming into an old fashioned church and worshipping with the Amish (at least to their way of thinking). I have been to both and I have pastored both. The more contemporary are more fun, but you have to keep ahead of the curve all the time or people get dissatisfied. The other makes for a bunch of defeated Christians laboring years in a small church.
All this to say I do not know. It is a sad question and one we ought not to even be having to ask ourselves. I do believe though that pursuing some of these things that you can without compromising your integrity is part of living in this culture – narcissistic and self-indulged as it is. You are preaching the truth to this generation, even if they are spoiled.
Whatever we think about it, it is the way it is done today. And we have to acknowledge that.
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