2 Problems With Churches That Use Contemporary Movies As Their Focus During The Worship Service

2 Problems With Churches That Use Contemporary Movies As Their Focus During The Worship Service – Part 1 (Audio)

2 Problems With Churches That Use Contemporary Movies As Their Focus During The Worship Service – Part 2 (Audio)

WHAT DO YOU DO WITH THE CHURCHES THAT USE MOVIES AS THEIR FOCUS DURING THE WORSHIP SERVICE?

So what do you do with the churches that they have a play scheduled for their services during Christmas – and whatever the play may be – that focuses on a contemporary movie – like “Home Alone” etc. – and it becomes the main focus of the services over a few weeks?

Well, I was thinking about two problems with this whole idea of doing this.

PROBLEM ONE: THE IDEA THAT PEOPLE CAN BE MANIPULATED INTO FAITH

And the first problem is is that it conveys the idea of like somehow people can be manipulated into faith.

If we just put on the right program to attract them and then we kind of got them in the house and then now we can kind of use our approach to play on their emotions, their likes or dislikes, and then now we can bring them to faith somehow.

And so that’s the first problem that we think that somehow we can manipulate people into faith.

GOD CREATES FAITH WHEN PEOPLE HEAR THE WORD OF GOD

And the way faith comes to people is actually God creates faith when they hear the Word of God preached to them or read to them or shared with them.

God creates faith.

“Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:17)

So that’s the first problem with these movies being used as kind of the attraction – some kind of a manipulation – to get people in the house.

PROBLEM TWO: THE PASTOR DOESN’T TRUST THE WORD OF GOD TO BE ENOUGH

And then the second problem is is it shows that the people in charge or the pastor – whoever is in the leadership here – that they really don’t trust the Word of God to be enough to do the work in people’s lives.

So that we end up exegeting the nuances of a movie script?

Or how a movie’s presented?

Or the different scenes in a movie now become the means to save people?

Which they are no means at all.

WE LEAVE THE WORD OF GOD ASIDE WHEN WE USE MOVIES TO BE THE MAIN FOCUS DURING THE WORSHIP SERVICE

And we basically leave the Word of God aside when we use movies to be the main focus during the service and the main draw – attraction – to get people in the house.

There you go.

(Popcorn via pixabay)