Yeah, that's the new in thing on Sunday nights. Instead of church on Sunday nights, we meet in small groups in someone's home. That actually is a good thing because it allows people to connect, however, the amount of teaching is gradually disappearing. This is based on Rick Warren's Purpose Driven model.
All addiction has consequences. America's obsession with entertainment has produced a society that has become increasingly more passive toward life. It seems we would rather watch reality on television than experience it first-hand.
Entertainment is designed to appeal to an audience's emotions. Those addicted to amusement lose their desire to think critically. The entertainment addict reacts to information, and even life, based on how it makes him or her feel. Emotion, rather than fact, is the supreme barometer for those enslaved to entertainment.
Addiction is also, by its very nature, an escalating condition. That is, an addict's appetite never plateaus. Hence those obsessed with entertainment desire more and more amusement that is increasingly more spectacular. The end result is that the sensational trumps the substantive.
The attention span is the casualty of all addiction. The entertainment addict is not only easily bored and distracted, but also has difficulty retaining relevant information for a very long period of time. Those obsessed with amusement are unable to juxtapose contemporary happenings with history. Thus, current events become nothing more than passing bits of trivia.
A society addicted to entertainment comprises individuals whose obsession is their own pleasure. Once a people lose the desire to pursue life and to think critically, once a society fails to recognize the substantive and cultivate a historical perspective, once these realities become the rule rather than the exception, a society is in danger. There are many things in life that taken in moderation are not necessarily negative. Entertainment is one of them. However, America has crossed the line of moderation and is plunging headlong into addiction. It seems we are, in the words of New York University's Neil Postman, "Amusing ourselves to death."
Boggs' column appears each Friday in Baptist Press. He is pastor of Valley Baptist Church in McMinnville, Ore
This is not a new thing. I was at some churches in California that were doing this 20 years ago. Except that they did it during the week. Sunday night was for fire and brimstone.
Actually the Cell Group concept got started in the US in the late 70's based on the success the Dr. Cho experienced in South Korea. We were cell group leaders in in 1979!