Entertain Me, Jesus!

Do people go to church to worship or to be entertained?

That's one of the questions Neil Postman writes in his classic book Amusing Ourselves to Death.  Postman's work deals with the American obsession of being entertained and how that obsession has forever changed news, politics, and even religion.  To be honest, his ideas scare me...

For example, could William Taft be president today?  He won easily in the 1908 election to become our 27th president.  Taft also weighed over 300 pounds.  Would Americans today, in an age where every candidate's picture is pasted on a million websites and played on ten millions television screens, vote for a man with an "image" like that?

Or what about politicians as entertainers?  Why was an appearance on Saturday Night Live so important for Hilary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and other candidates in recent years?  What is it about a few one-liners that makes a person more fit to govern our nation?  Will we end the war in Iraq if our President has enough Hollywood "zingers" up his sleeve?

Or what about our attention spans.  Postman cites the disturbing record of a debate between Abe Lincoln and Stephen Douglas in the mid-1800's.  During some of the early debates, Douglas was given three hours to speak, Lincoln followed with three hours of rebuttal, and then Douglas was given one final hour to respond.  Seven hours of talking!  And people listened! 

Imagine if I tried that on Sunday!

Postman's theory is that entertainment has become the essential ingredient in all communication since the television took over our culture.  That's why news anchors need theme music for the nightly report, candidates for president need good comedic timing on SNL, and preachers better be immensely entertaining or be willing to say "Amen!" after seven minutes.

To be honest, I haven't digested Postman's ideas enough to give an honest critique.  I will say, however, that I have seen the difficulty in communicating to our culture.  How does one compete with the endless entertainment that our people are immersed in?  PowerPoint?  Object lessons?  Videos in church?  I'm not sure.

I can only offer two thoughts at this point--First, Christians must realize that worship is about glorifying God, not being entertained by Him.  Some people wander away from Christian gatherings because "I wasn't getting anything out of it."  But what if that wasn't the main point?  What if God wanted you to come so that you could give and not take?  Give Him your praise.  Give him your attention.  Give him your thanks.  Give him your worship.

I know that is not an easy task.  It will mean confronting that part of you that has been trained to be entertained.  It will mean fighting to recognize one of the main goals of worship--To give thanks to God for the forgiveness he's given to us.  It will mean realizing that coming to church will not be a time to relax, but a time to go to war, to fight against a wandering mind, a distant heart, and the useless repetition of a Sunday routine.

Secondly, I'm not ready to give up hope on the people of today because of a promise God has made about his Word.  "The Word of God is living and active...It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart," (Heb. 4:12).  If a preacher like me stood up and tried to compete with the charm, humor, and entertainment of our culture, I would fail so miserably my wife wouldn't even show up.

But I have more than that.

Every Christian has more than that.

Because we have the Bible.

The Bible is a God-given gift.  It is inspired with divine power to cut through the entertainment-gained layers around our American-trained bodies and get to our hearts.  There it cuts us apart and exposes our sin.  And there it heals us with the message of the cross.

So we march forward with the Word.  Sometimes it will be entertaining (like when Samson rips the town gates off of their foundations or Adam and Eve try to play Hide and Seek with God!).  Sometimes it will take hours of reflection, even more than our citizens gave to the Lincoln-Douglas debates.  Most of the time, it will be somewhere in between.

But, in the end, the result will be glorious.  Instead of a life-time of laughs, we will have a joy that never ends in heaven.  Instead of an infinity of useless bits of information from the nightly news, we will have the infinite peace that God gives in his Son.

So keep reading.  Keep studying.  Keep coming on Sunday.  Keep growing in Jesus.

And don't wait until the next commercial break to do it.

Blessings,

Pastor Mike