Troubled

I am a pastor’s wife and part-time church secretary. I was sitting at my desk when I noticed an Outreach Marketing magazine on our mail pile. I opened it and began looking through its pages. On page 10, I discovered what was labeled “Impact Cards.” I was troubled at the various ways suggested to draw people to a worship service. How can we, as the people of God, be a witness if we conform to the ways of His world? It seemed to me that these cards are suggesting we do just that.

It is a known fact, people go to church to find that one thing that is missing in their lives, the one thing that material things, money and good health cannot supply them. We are supposed to be a set-apart people. The church is not an institution; it is a living organism! The church is not a country club to provide programs and entertainment for the amusement of all who gather there. The church is a body of believers whose main objective is to worship a living and holy God in love and adoration, with fear and trembling, and to receive instruction through the preaching of His holy Word (which has taken a back seat to entertainment and trivial amusement).

We can offer high-powered music, “positive” messages and even suggest people wear bathrobes to church, all in the name of comfort and convenience, but how does this honor God? At funerals, a man will wear a suit and tie to honor a corpse, but the same man wants to be comfortable when he comes to worship the living God. He deserves our best; after all, didn’t He give us His best, His precious Son? The Bible never talks about worship as being fun.

Worship is a holy thing and shouldn’t be treated lightly. Our desire should be for the Holy Spirit to show up at our worhsip services, not Ronald McDonald. Without Him, there would be no conviction of sin, no changed lives and no ambition or desire to serve God.

I won’t be ordering any of those so-called “outreach cards” because of their irreverent messages and images. I did suggest, why not use Scripture? After all, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Rom. 10:17).

Jane M. Curtis
Grove Hill, Ala.