produced church

This is a parody on the contemporary cool church! Cracked me up but it's really supposed to make you think...Personally I think the modern Charismatic/Pentecostal/Evangelical have tried so hard to be so cool & relevant that many churches have just become "cookie cutters" and they are so predictable! We recently ran into a friend we went to SEC with (not on FB so don't nobody think I'm talking about you-although if the shoe fits...) and the guy had the cool clothes, hair cut, glasses and required tattoo, cool speech "Hey dude what's up?"....it was sad , here was this 45 yr old, TRYING to look & sound like a youth pastor LOL. It took NO effort to imagine what his church was like, everyone in jeans, with their coffee on Sun morning, in for an hour then out....You know it's rather laughable....he wasn't being unique or himself, he was following what he felt was the way to grow a church, being relevant....

I'll be honest, I did go out and buy Jon the required black shirt and ripped jeans and shoes to match....and he felt like an IDIOT!!!!!!! He tried to wear them to something and he just cracked up and said he couldn't do it. I did get him to wear them for our Xmas pic last yr so we'd all match but they've just sat in his closet. He will wear the shirt TUCKED in with a pair of dress pants. but he can't bring himself to wear the jeans, I figure Steve will be in that size soon....He's just not about being the cool pastor! LOL Keep it real! Now he rarely wears a suit and when he does, rarely a tie but it's more than anything just because that is what he feels comfortable with. We aren't formal at our church but we're not informal either, just kinda in the middle....no one sports a cool new tattoo, there is a few with some old ones, but honestly they try to cover them up...And I don't have a problem with someone getting a tattoo but don't just do something to be cool. It looks stupid to a watching world, like a kid playing dress up.....

Honestly I don't want to go back to the '60's where all the men wore a 3 piece suit and the ladies wore dresses & hose and all the little rugrats were dressed to kill in their Sunday best....But it's like we've had to swing the pendulum so far that it is ridiculous. I remember when I was a kid no one would even chew gum "in the house of the Lord" Now it's coffee & doughnuts every Sunday morning! There's nothing wrong with Starbucks (love 'em) but just be yourself.

The world isn't gonna beat down your door whether you as the pastor has the latest hip style or their favorite brand of Starbucks coffee...they are looking for reality. Sure the "cool" church may grow for a season in numbers but according to research by George Bara the more contemporary churches have the least amount of commitment. (I read that in a study and can't quote the study but I know it was his group that did it.) I'm sure every church struggles with commitment, our church is more traditional but very grace oriented & we struggle with people being committed. But I believe that the "seeker sensitive " church in the long run will do more to hurt the body of Christ than to help. In 20 yrs or so, when church historians begin looking back, I believe it will have ran it's course as did the Charismatic movement of the 70's, the big ministries/tv ministries of the 80's & 90's...

What do people crave? We all crave God first & foremost! Then authenticity within church. The whole contemporary church movement, "church outside the box" probably started wtih the best of intentions...but like anything else, when a pastor feels he needs to be a carbon copy of someone else, the whole thing looks silly! There are "moves of God" that speak more to my heart like the Brownsville Revival & the Lakeland Outpouring" from the 90's but it was so silly to me when I began to see ministers base their ministry on trying to be like Steve Hill or Rodney Howard Brown. Be yourself! Don't try to copy another minister's way of doing something, it doesn't fit you....