Month: January 2014 (Page 1 of 2)

The apostle Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:1-3, “And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal.”  An old minister once remarked to me, “I don’t mind feeding them milk, but I hate to part their whiskers to do it.”  Of course, he was implying that they ought to have grown enough in spiritual maturity to be able to consume deeper preaching and teaching.  I believe the same could be said about the present crop of professing Christians.  However, the current trend in church growth is to give them milk.

It reminds me of a channel on our Roku that has nothing but children’s videos.  It presents a number of videos with familiar children’s tunes such as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.”  The colors are bright and large and move about with the music.  My youngest granddaughter fascinated by it.  I turned it on the other day and my now 7-year-old granddaughter couldn’t take her eyes off of it.  This is what church meetings have become to a great extent.  It’s all about visuals, smoke rising from the stage during worship music, large video screens, and benign messages that end quickly with no embarrassing alter calls.  People bring their iPads, Kindles, and smart phones to the services.  Some preachers even allow people to text them while they are preaching.  The focus is no longer on God and His word, but on a high tech way to manage the meetings so that it all approves of and fits well inside the attention span of the congregants.

The “experts” declare that it is the best way to reach the so-called unchurched and Generations X, Y, and Z.  Generation X was born after the Baby Boomers and ended in the early 80s.  Generation Y, also called the millennials, ranges from the 80s to 2000.  Now there is Generation Z, the high tech generation.  Maybe the “experts” are right when it comes to numerical growth.  A church can be launched (a term for a popular church planting program) and within weeks it will have enough attendees to pay the bills.  In a few months, it outstrips the neighboring churches in attendance and can grow into a mega church if properly managed.  Add a few social programs to make everyone feel as though they are making a difference, and presto, it is assumed that there is a new force in the religious sector.  Never mind that they empty other churches to build their church, it has all the marks of success, excitement, full parking lots, and a lot of busy-ness.

But is this what it is all about?  Is it about cramming people into a building, dazzling them with music, videos, and high tech gadgets, and then feed them a little milk and send them on their way?  Can an army of babies fight the type of battle that is not only raging at the present in Christianity , but is certain to become more intense and widespread?  Most professing Christians involved in these types of churches have no clue as to the source of their belief system (if they have one at all) and cannot properly defend it.  They are finicky, high maintenance/low productivity, individuals that cannot even identify heresy or the heretic that brings it.  Most of them will accept whatever is preached or taught without question as long as it does not convict them or otherwise make them feel uncomfortable.  The majority came out of spiritually comatose traditional churches and the rest came out of the world system.  In all likelihood they had no spiritual birthday.  They wandered in, drawn like a bug to a night light, and felt comfortable enough to stay.  Of course, that is the whole point of the Launch and Seeker-friendly churches. It is not to bring people into the Kingdom of God, but to stack them into a church building for a short period on Sunday morning.  It’s a social event, like going to a play or a Christmas concert.

I confess that I do not know to what extent high technology should be involved in a church meeting.  That is really not my point.  Instead, I am pointing out the fact that it does not matter how a church draws a crowd if they come empty and leave the same way.  When the atmosphere presents such a cavalier attitude toward God and His word, and there is no passion, anointing, and conviction, there will be no spiritual progress.  If the leaders of the church do not take God’s word serious, do not have a passion, and do not pray and seek God for anointing, why should anyone else take the whole affair of “church” seriously?  Someone might ask, “But, won’t the spiritual babes also go the heaven?”  I suppose so, if they are not devoured first (1 Peter 5:8).  Another consequence of luring babes with visuals and feeding them pabulum is that the church at large becomes infected with a consortium of heretical influences that further separate people from God’s word and purpose.

That is what I am observing today.  There are so many diabolical doctrines and practices flowing unchecked into Christianity that it cannot possible survive much longer.  Truth is being called falsehood and falsehood is being called truth.  Scriptural prayer is being destroyed with a pagan substitute.  Yoga, Transcendental Meditation, Contemplative Spirituality, and other influences from the New Age Movement have been repackaged, relabeled, and are being accepted at an alarming rate by highly influential church leaders.  Some churches have become so infested with heresy and blatant wickedness that they can no longer be considered Christian institutions.  Entire denominations are being swayed and converted to a mixture of Christianity and paganism.  Not only is there little resistance from the church members and denominational adherents, but few are willing to listen to the truth about what is occurring.  Maybe if it was presented with a bit of smoke and high tech gadgetry they would listen.  Even then, most of them would be too weak spiritually to do anything about it.

I have been asked repeatedly what can be done about the situation.  There is only one answer; people have to return to making God first in their lives.  Everything that distracts from that goal must be rejected.  The high tech church is not a problem in and of itself.  It is the fascination and even obsession with throwing away the old methods and everything that is involved with them.  I agree that each generation has to find its own way to do the will of God.  However, they must realize that the old methods worked for the older generations because they made Christ the center of all that they did.  That part cannot be thrown away along with the old methods.  The virtues must not be discarded with the relics of a past generations quest to please God.  If there is no passion for God, there will never be a God-honored purpose.  If there is no God-honored purpose, there will never be enough spiritual fire to spark a revival.  As one someone once said, “Every generation needs its own revival; God has no grandchildren.”