AUTOMATIC UPDATES FOR CHURCHES Like aging computers, some churches now receive regular “automatic updates” for their worship and doctrine to stay up-to-date with this world. If the present fellowship of believers is going to make any headway whatsoever in meeting the crisis being forced upon the world at this time—if it is to make even the slightest dent on a world completely mesmerized with the ornaments of secularism it must believe with all its might in the midst of this sweeping tide of anti-Christian movement its own biblical birthright--the New Testament Gospel of Jesus Christ. Go with the world—be doomed with the world. My phone rang this past week and I learned that a large congregation in a nearby state recently announced its members they were severing ties with their traditional worship, that they were employing a new minister of music and the congregation should expect some new innovations in the worship. When some members objected they were simply told that times were changing and that the church had to change with the times. . Yesterday I received an e-mail about another in Texas. What is called “contemporary worship” is the new innovative styles of worship happening across denominational lines. It is first regarded as harmless praise devotion where arms are raised and handclapping is associated with hymns but I have noticed that, given a little time, it usually degenerates into a liberal congregation practicing many unscriptural activities. The movement was born in unsupervised youth meetings in quaint reclusive places like haylofts and by streams in youth camps around vesper campfires--dating back to the sixties. Some were characterized by activities they didn’t feel comfortable with in regularly church services like handclapping while singing hymns (shades of children songs in VBS)—and one I recall where prayers written on paper were cast into the campfire where they were to ascend heavenward in the smoke. One lady who had been to a hayloft worship told me she had never felt so spiritual in a conventional church building service. I thought—how utterly depriving for those who can’t climb up into the loft. Those young people now too old to climb into haylofts are now leaders in many congregations who have brought something like that into their worship now filtering into many congregations. I drove past a church here in Montgomery the other day that is now offering a “traditional worship” for some and a “contemporary worship for others.” Observe this: Just a little time and the traditional will b e removed. Like an aging computer, they must have automatic updates” or be left behind. If we accept the New Testament as the pattern for Christianity, which it is of course, and that pattern according to multiple contexts of scripture never changes, how can a congregation continue to be Jesus’ church that you read about in the unchanging Bible if it is constantly changing to accommodate itself to the fads and whims of the worl? How can a congregation wearing Christ’s name be so bold? A basic text for being the Lord’s church is to heed his word that says when you come to Christ you are to “Come out, be separate and touch not the unclean thing.” Each time a congregation winks at this and begins to tolerate this abuse and that abuse by conforming itself to popular lifestyles and doctrine it weakens itself. Like Samson, it may think it can still do battle with the enemy but it miserably fails because it does not even know the Spirit of God has departed from it leaving the congregation of once strong Christians, captured, blinded and enslaved in the mill house of unbelievers. So sad, but those who will mot listen will have to pay. AMEN
Posted on: Tue, 10 Sep 2013 12:34:11 +0000
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