In my travels, and in reading numerous church
bulletins, I am intrigued by the evolution of the term
“worship leader.” More
and more, I see the song director singled out as the worship leader to
the
exclusion of other public participants. All along I had thought that
the
brother leading prayer was also leading worship; that those serving
communion
and preaching were leading worship. In a recent report about a youth
gathering,
it was said that a singing group would “lead us in worship
and then we will
pray and hear a message from God’s Word.” Just what
were they doing when they
prayed and preached? Is this not worship, too? What’s going
on here?
Actually, I fear that I do know what’s going on. There
seems to be a nationwide—if not worldwide—movement
afoot to place less and less
emphasis on preaching, and perhaps do away with it altogether. In an AP
article
in the Memphis Commercial Appeal
(April 15, 2006) about a Franklin, TN church, it said,
“Sunday mornings at the
People’s Church look more like a rock concert than
traditional worship
services.” It went on to say they are “moving away
from singing hymns…” (Are
our congregations far behind?)
In the article, Dr. James Byrd, Assoc. Dean of Vanderbilt Divinity School,
hit the nail on the head—albeit unwittingly—when,
in reference to the praise
songs, said, “…There’s less to disagree
with in music than in sermons, where
you can get into theological arguments.” I believe that this
accounts for the
increasing popularity of drama teams in some churches. More
“praise” songs.
More drama. And less preaching. That is the trend.
God’s design for spreading His Gospel was that it be
preached. “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world by
wisdom did not know
God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save those who
believe.”
(1 Corinthians 1:21). Jesus said, “Go into all the world and
preach the
gospel…” (Mark 16:15). The last time I checked,
preaching was fairly high on
God’s to-do list. A church that cuts back on its preaching
will starve to death
spiritually. Satan’s design is to remove the knowledge of
God’s Word from the
people. Are we too blind to see that?
Another thing I’ve been noticing is restlessness about
Sunday night and Wednesday night services. And in every case, it is a
movement
away from preaching. In some places, instead of a Sunday night worship
service,
the people are urged to go out and do community service. Others have
suggested
that instead of a sermon that we have skits and drama team offerings.
Some seem
ready to chase every new fad that comes along.
If we ran our school systems like some would like to
run the church, we would soon be out of the education business. Just
suppose
the teachers said, “You know, we’ve noticed that
our young people are getting
bored with all this Math, English, Chemistry and History. What they
really want
is more field trips and service projects.” Are field trips
and service projects
beneficial? Are they good teaching tools? Yes. But when a school starts
dropping academic classes and starts majoring in field trips, it is
dead. And
when a church starts cutting back the time needed to preach the Word of
God and
replaces it with drama teams, praise music, skits and service projects,
that
church is dead. They just haven’t had the funeral yet.
Is it true that we need to be outside our church houses
practicing pure religion? Absolutely! Is it true that a small group
Bible study
might attract someone who is not attending the Sunday night assembly?
Yes. But
has anybody thought about doing this on Thursday night or Saturday so
we can
still have that precious teaching time in the assembly for the entire
body?
Probably not. We’re not quite that religious. After all, we
don’t want anybody
thinking we’re fanatics, now do we?
Worship
and Such