How many times have you walked out of a worship service and thought, “Well, at least it was entertaining.”? I don’t have the Bible memorized, but I don’t know of a place in scripture where God said anything like, “Come to me and be entertained.”
Now don’t get me wrong, church should be the highlight of our week – in fact, I think it should even be fun (maybe this won’t get me fired). But if church is not real then it is not pleasing to God. Our goal in worship should always be to please God. I believe we do this when we present a worship opportunity for folks to focus on the creator and experience God’s presence. This cannot be forced but the opportunity can be offered.
It grieves me when I here of churches using gimmicks to get folks through the doors. I have been in a few services that I walked out and thought, “Man, that was just cheesy! Am I so shallow in my faith that it takes something like that to get me here?”
I am committed to the fact that we are going to make our church a “cheese free zone.” I pray that God will grow us to be deeply rooted and that everything we do will be authentic and meaningful. God expects nothing less and neither should we.
Clay in the Hands 
[…] One of the catch phrases today is “culturally relevant.” I must admit, I am a big proponent of a church being culturally relevant in the sense that church needs to meet people where they are and be able to meet relevant, real life, real time issues we all face on a daily basis. Unfortunately, all too often, in an attempt to be culturally relevant, churches focus their attention on superficial things trying to appeal to those outside the church. What can happen is a move to entertainment as opposed to worship. I have touched on this issue before – you can read that post here. […]