A Quote by Aiden Wilson Tozer
God calls us to worship, but in many instances we are in entertainment, just running a poor second to the theaters. That is where we are, even in the evangelical churches, and I don't mind telling you that most of the people we say we are trying to reach will never come to a church to see a lot of amateur actors putting on a home-talent show.
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I see apostasy in many ways occurring in Evangelical churches that really aren't teaching the truth of God's word. I do believe that some churches have become entertainment centers and a teaching a type of prosperity Gospel rather than teaching God's word.
We realized that there's a great need in many churches to use the power of the media...There are a lot of different ways to preach. You can preach by praising. You can preach by preaching sermons. You can preach by just giving someone food when they're hungry. There are people who will never darken a church door but they will come to see a play.
In evangelical and Pentecostal churches, most people have a home church they identify with, but you have a favourite pastor or evangelist that you listen to occasionally. Studying scripture means you don't just read the Bible: you read devotional books and books designed to help your spiritual walk or the church broadly construed.
Worship isn't God's show. God is the audience. God's watching. The congregation, they are the actors in this drama. Worship is their show. And the minister is just reminding the people of their forgotten lines.
If you're going to say you're Catholic, you inform your conscience so that you're activities will conform to what God is telling us through the Church. If God is telling you something outside of that, well, the Church will look at that and say: we think it is true or we don't think it is true. The Church might say: that might be true for you but it has no public normative value.
The churches that are growing and thriving are churches that I would call evangelical and orthodox for the most part in their beliefs. They are churches that tend to evangelize ... and encourage their people to share their faith. These are the churches that are actually growing. The ones that are shrinking are the ones that are compromising and watering down what the word of God says.
The Church is the Church in her worship. Worship is not an optional extra, but is of the very life and essence of the Church. ...Man is never more truly man than when he worships God. He rises to all the heights of human dignity when he worships God, and all God's purpose in Creation and in Redemption are fulfilled in us as together in worship we are renewed in and through Christ, and in the name of Christ we glorify God.
True worship, worship in spirit and truth, has never been and will never be a trend. This style of music may be a trend, but that's because God's blowing a fresh Wind of His Spirit in so many people who are coming to realize that anything that just builds us up as people isn't worth much. What gives God the spotlight is important. And that's all we're about.
I owe my nurture to evangelicalism. The evangelical wins hands down in the history of the church when it comes to nurturing a biblically literate laity. When we think of evangelism, evangelicals are the most resourceful, the most intrepid, and the most creative. But evangelicals themselves would say that they have never come to grips with what the whole mystery of the church is.
If churches saw their mission in the same way, there is no telling what might happen. What if people were invited to come tell what they already know of God instead of to learn what they are supposed to believe? What if they were blessed for what they are doing in the world instead of chastened for not doing more at church? What if church felt more like a way station than a destination? What if the church’s job were to move people out the door instead of trying to keep them in, by convincing them that God needed them more in the world than in the church?
There are so many talented actors in Chicago, I have to go see shows when I'm there. A lot of these actors, who I've seen when I'm in Chicago in theaters, are technically amazing and never have an opportunity to showcase it on a bigger medium.
If we could see, even for a split second, the depths of God's love for us - all we'd want to do is worship and prayer would never seem a chore.
I do think that even with entertainment and telling stories, people in the entertainment industry have such a beautiful position in the world to speak about things that they're passionate about in a way that can grab people more than just sitting and telling someone about something, because you can show it visually.
Let me say to you, that many of you will see the time when you will have all the trouble, trial and persecution that you can stand, and plenty of opportunities to show that you are true to God and his work. This Church has before it many close places through which it will have to pass before the work of God is crowned with victory. The time will come when no man nor woman will be able to endure on borrowed light. Each will have to be guided by the light within himself. If you do not have it, how can you stand?
What James Madison and the other men of his generation had in mind when they wrote the First Amendment was that there should be no official relationship of any character between government and any church or many churches, and no levying of taxes for the support of any church, or many churches, or all churches, or any institution conducted by any of them.
Every once in a while I check and I say, do I still believe in God? And the answer is absolutely yes. And then I think, I suppose I should go to church now. But after going to so many churches in my life and trying to go with the flow with so many denominations, Eastern and Western, I don't really feel I need to go to church at all.
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