It's an old debate, but one that's been showing up a good bit in my life these days. Here's how it started:
Our church in the midst of a project called Transforming Churches. It's essentially a consulting program with an outside company designed to help our church do a better job of, well...everything. As with any consulting issue, there are some things that work and some things that don't, but one of the predominant things our "coach" has been talking about has been our weekly television broadcast.
Every two months, we broadcast our 10:30 "Traditional" service on a local TV station. The service is on a one-week delay, and is primarliy viewed by those that are physically unable to attend our services.
Our coach believes that we should change our format - that we should stop broadcast traditional services and show the contemporary service instead, as most young families are going to be more inclined to check out a more casual service.
Believe it or not, I don't want us to talk about "modern" services verses "traditional" ones. (Sorry, Johnny.) But I do think its interesting to hear someone suggest that we modify the act of worship so that it can be more evangelistic.
And so the debate began - should we alter our times of corporate worship and fellowship to be more evangelistic? Should we keep them totally seperate? If worship's done right, is it evangelism enough?
Then, I was discussing a church's practice of prayer with a friend. My friend tells me that the preacher doesn't really explain much before going into a relatively unique, but Biblical, form of prayer. This bugged my pal, because he felt the pastor should be doing more "explaining" for those who were visiting.
Where do you stand? Should we be thinking of evangelism while doing worship? Should we just worship and let God do what He wants? Is there a place for specific evangelistic outreach.
*Please note that this blog is sometimes frequented by Calvinists, so who knows what those kooks are gonna' say! Heh!
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
Tough question...because no matter what you think is right, the other doesn't sound that bad. What is the service's purpose? When it was started, what was the reason for doing so? Was it to just have something new? Was it to reach the seeker? I think that if a church is seeking God, worshipping Him, spending time in the word, then people will see that and be drawn to it. Of course, if your main focus is evangelism, then people will come too. If you worry to much about who is not there, then are your core members getting what they need? To me, seeking God, worshipping, etc etc is the one that appeals to me more. But I really don't know too much..hope my paragraph makes sense.
Well, Jeff pretty much said what I was going to say.
My church focuses more on discipleship rather than evangelism (in hopes that the people will go out and evangelize) and it seems to work well for us. We see a lot of folks come to the Village from Fellowship (which is really big on being seeker friendly) because they felt like there wasn't any focus on going deeper. It's all about balance.
Personally I like the worship time being more intimate, focused on believers gathering to worship corporately. We've got 6 other days (well 5 in our case) for evangelism!
I'll throw myself into the "ring" of debate. Worship is reserved for the believer. Evangelism is the means to an end. The end...the ability to worship.
Now, I'm not saying that people can't be called to salvation through the gathering of the saints. It happens. When it does...hallelujah! But that's not what worship is for.
I'm I wrong?
I say go ahead and sing only evangelistic songs, preach only evangelistic sermons, and put on only evangelistic events.
That way our people never really have to LIVE out their Christianity at all.
While I agree that worship should not be a tool for evangelism and that evangelism is a means to an end, I still have one glaring question. Why put the service on TV at all if its purpose is to honor God and not be some evangelistic tool to enlarge the body?
I can understand your frustration with the consultant's advice. But, if you disagree with him, then why replay the service at all?
Well, I don't think I said specifically that I disagreed with him over the broadcast. I merely said some stuff was good and some stuff wasn't. Then I posed a question to you all.
Also, I mentioned that this broadcast was viewed by "shut-ins," members that were unable to attend. That's the reason its currently played.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough, because I think you're maybe missing the question, Daniel. I mentioned two experiences that focused on worship vs. evangelism and asked you guys what you thought...
Right? Is that what the rest of you guys thought? Just want to be clear...
If you're worshiping God, orient the service toward Him. If you're trying to convert the lost, orient your service toward them.
IMESHO, Lord's Day worship has nothing whatsoever to do with seekers, nor should it. They can be preached to any other time but that.
I would like to add that it seems that the issue is "broadcasting which service will do more for evangelism?" It doesn't sound like the plan is to change the content of the services, just which one goes on air. Am I right?
Both services being equal (spiritually speaking) why not pick the one with the "prettier wrapper"?
Why does there have to be a separation between the two: worship & evangelism?
It seems extremely strange to draw a distinction here. Sunday morning (or insert your corporate gathering time here) should just be an overflow of your worship that has transpired during the week. I mean, we don't really think that our corporate time together is our only worship, right? Everything we do is worship. That being the case then our corporate time is for everyone, the "seeker" to see that Christianity isn't isolated to a time slot, but an intentional response to an already existing relationship, and for the believer to gather with other believers and profess (read sing, pray, engage the Word) Christ as King - corporately.
I think my goal of a corporate service is to connect Sunday to Monday for everyone and have them realize that there's nothing sacred or isolated about a service. I think when Christ said "when you minister unto the least of these you minister unto me" has a lot to do with the seeker. (I'm assuming least means spiritually unaware).
Direct to the question of airing the service: if showing your service on Sunday's isn't effective at reaching people, then I say you have to question why you show it. Afterall, God's probably showing up for the service and not catching it on Tivo - so the TV version is definetly not for God. A TV shut-in service is fine, as long as the service is still effectively communicating the gospel.
Cue fireworks.
Post a Comment