Most churches today have moved on with the times. I recall being a member of a Baptist church some 25 years ago where the God-approved worship instruments were the piano and organ. On one occasion some senior members walked out because drums were used and the youth started clapping hands!
Some of the more dynamic and fast-growing churches today use lighting and sound accompanied by hi-tech multi-media technologies. You name it and we've got it - strobe lights, disco balls, spot lights, screens on either side of the pulpit where live images of the preacher is projected from data projectors worth thousands of dollars each. The stage is equipped with fog machines, monstrous speakers, tangle of cables, super-sensitive microphones and other paraphenalia.
I actually belong to one such church. I enjoy being there. No it is not all young people there. Yes I have seen some senior worshippers with earplugs in their ears but with their hands raised in worship. The worship is gloriously edifying and exhilarating. My wife and I attended the Hillsongs Conference in Sydney a couple of years ago where some 35,000 people worshipped in a similar setting. We felt the presence of God and the oneness of a multitude of Christians from diverse nations worshipping together. I saw a glimpse of what heaven would be like.
I do however wonder whether the Church has gone too far and become a "disco" church! If Jesus walked into our modern church today as he entered the temple 2 millenia ago and expressed his dissent at the money changers and all the commotion there, what would he do or think of the "disco" church?
Thursday, January 10, 2008
The Disco Church
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3 comments:
The Disco Church!?
Churches these days have gone all out wih the use of spotlights, strobes, fog machines, spotters, and ambient lighting to create atmposhere during praise and worship and what is more common now, the use of it during the entire service.
The technical lighting churches use these days are the same equipment that are used at a Lloyd Webber musical, a Shakespearean tragedy, or even at a political rally.
Theatre is a realm that evokes mood and atmosphere with the help with technical lighting etc.
With church borrowing products from theatre what is that saying? A Christian needs to be evoked in a mood and be given an atmosphere
in order for him/her to praise their maker in song!
I hear comments like "be in the world, not of the world" and Christians must be contemporary in order to reach the lost.
Theatre is also a realm where we are entertained. If church is borrowing those elements of theatre. Do I go to church to be entertained? Or do I go to church to meet the man upstairs to whom I love dearly.
Is church still a musical like a
Lloyd Webber production, a Shakespearen tragedy or just a political rally to entertain us?
I'm not quite sure what the Jesus and the money changers incident has to do with the subject.
Jesus didn't eject the money changers because they were using technology but because they had transformed the church from a place of worship to a place of commerce.
The so-called disco church has not changed the purpose of church ... just the style or method in which the message is communicated.
There is no parallel
James you asked about the link between Jesus and the money changers. I agree with you on commercialisation of the temple as one of the causes for the eviction.
Does the use of such technologies in the "disco" church (as often used in the commercial sectors), a way to attract and maintain a steady group of attendees, thus increase income and growth? How about the use of the EFTPOS machines in church to collect tithes and offerings? Is it any different?
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