In recent years we’ve certainly seen the trend toward more and more entertainment in churches. Some of these church are reaching many people for Christ and are doing a lot of good things, but I wonder about the long-range effects. Is this much like the frog in the kettle that gradually gets cooked to death through the slow increase of temperature? An excellent book that concerns itself with some of these issues is The Coming Evangelical Crisis, edited by John H. Armstrong.

Personally, I think we must get back to a celebration of worship that entails an in-depth study of the Scripture—verse by verse, precept upon precept. Even where that is being done in many churches, there is too much “fluff” and too little time in the Word. The responsibility of church leaders is to search the Scripture for a biblical philosophy of ministry, develop that, follow it, and teach it to their people. Then leave the results to the Lord. We need to guard against worrying about the mega-church mentality or becoming envious of such.

For more information, see A Biblical Philosophy of Ministry, and The Measure of a Church. Both studies may be located in the “Ecclesiology” section on our web site at www.bible.org