AKA "The Church-Of-What's-Happenin'-Now"
Another Chesterton quote, from the beginning of the same paragraph also fits:
Christianity is always out of fashion because it is always sane; and all fashions are mild insanities.
This quote is telling. I guess "people lining up at the door" is the highest goal of most contemporary pastors.
That the [evangelical] Christian church in America is "fad-driven" is true, for the most part. That the reason for this is that the general society is fad-driven is an indication of how worldly the contemporary church in America is. It's also an indication of how spiritually shallow most self-appointed Christian leaders are today that they need to rely upon the latest fad, or some "program-in-a-box" to fuel their "ministries."
The real truth is that we are living in a very dry period, spiritually, in the American church, and church leaders are trying everything to remedy this dryness....Everything, that is, except the living, dynamic reality of the presence of Jesus Christ in the life of the believer. To look at most of the contemporary evangelical church, one would have to conclude that Jesus Christ has gone into retirement.
On related themes, I recommend "On Christless Preaching," and "The Pop, the Fizz, the Purpose-Driven Biz."
Let us pray that the tacky "Praise Bands" will die with the 50-70 yr. olds who think they can sing this really bad music. When the last baby boomer dies, I hope he will take "Shine, Jesus, Shine" with him.
I am glad my RP church isn't part of this fad culture. We stick to the tried and true.
I am happy to report that I visited my home PCUSA church yesterday, and I was thoroughly impressed. They ditched their woman associate pastor. They have a new pastor that is thoroughly conservative and orthodox, plus Reformed.
His prayers yesterday were beautiful.
I don't understand why some folks hate Rick Warren's book so much.
PDL/PDC also borrows from Eastern Mysticism using contemplative prayer and forms of yoga.
a devout Catholic - and has written some really neat things - amusing and serious
quite an artist as well
I'd encourage anyone to check him out
The Gospel has and will not ever change but our society has and the way we reach them needs too.
I was reading a survey at www.lifeway.com the other day and it stated that as of 2003 more than half of the population of the US has had media influence (TV,Radio,internet,etc) over their entire life span and in just a few years 100% of the population will have had media influence thier whole lives.
How do we reach those people that are used to media influence and how it communicates to them?
In the days of old in Southern Baptist life (The late 50's and early 60's were the glory days of the SBC) it was "A million more in '54" (We made that goal) or in the 80's "Bold Mission Thrust"which was reaching every people group in the world with the gospel by 1990 (we didn't make that one)
The Church has the average attender for 3 hours a week: Sunday Am, Sunday Pm, and Wednesday night;that is all.Many will not even give that much. And notice I said attender.
How do we reach those for Christ that have a different way of taking in information and help them transform their sinful lives to a life striving for Holiness?
I am not for watering down any part of Gods Word but we need to reach all for Christ and do it well.
The question is How?
A very good article. Pretty much right on target.
I was just thinking about this this morning. When we abandoned the traditional mass, Latin for the Catholics, Olde English for the Episcopalians, we did it to become contemporary. Well, the mass we replaced that with is now at least 25-40 years old -- it aint contemporary any more. This means there must be an endless stream of missals and Books of Common Prayer and Hymnals, because it should have to be updated AT MOST every ten years. That ought to keep a few hundred theologians busy!
read later
Additionally, when the scriptures were recorded and for many of the first 1500 years after the death of Christ, there was no such thing as a middle class. Now there is. And the middle gets bounced between the "trust in God and everything will be ok" and "your prayer was answered, but maybe not to your desire, but God's plan." In todays modern man, who truly understands God's plan?
There is very liberal theology. There is very conservative theology. There are those who believe in the Marian aspect of faith, those who speak in tongues, those who handle snakes, those have communion every service while others only do so once or twice a year. There is salvation by expressing faith, salvation through baptism, baptism through sprinkling and dunking, once under or three times under. Again, is it any wonder that modern man who has seen amazing scientific advances has difficulty in understanding his role in the world, his understanding the role of God in science if He is involved and how it all applies.
In my top 30-40 metropolitan area, there are over 100 denominations in the yellow pages. That's over 100 variations of the truth.
Many will point to the culture of the day as the reason for the variations and the ever changing fad of the day. Yet, if todays technology existed 2000 years ago, it is likely the same would have occurred. Technology allowed for further investigation and mass communication of the latest fad books or theologies. And who really knows if someone has cracked the true meaning of something in the good book. Even discerning individuals have a hard time seperating the hay from the chaffe. Discerning folks during the flat world days would have stuck to that principle instead of allowing the novel idea that the world is round to go forward.
Many say that the Bible is not a fluid document, yet if it isn't then why has enlightenment taken place over the years. Why has the fault between the Catholic and Protestant groups been seen as an advance when it truly was based on a fluid interpretation of the scripture and the understanding of tradition.