Hi Neighbor!

[Carbon]

Members, I'd like to try something a little different here. So, if you're interested, consider this a real post that has been pinned up around your town, inviting everyone to a new church. Read it and reply with what you think, what you might do if this were real. So, what's your take?

First, let me give the credit where it is due. This is taken from a book by Michael Horton, "Christless Christianity".



_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


At last! A new church for those who have given up on church services! Let's face it. Many people aren't active in church these days.

Why?
Too often

• the sermons are boring and dont relate to daily living
• many churches seem more interested in your wallet than you
• members are unfriendly to visitors
• you wonder about the quality of the nursery care for your little ones

Do you think attending church should be enjoyable?
WELL, WE'VE GOT GOOD NEWS FOR YOU!

Valley church is a new church designed to meet your needs in the 2020s. At Valley church, you

• meet new friends and get to know your neighbours
• enjoy exciting music with a contemporary flavor
• hear positive, practical messages which uplift you each week

* How to feel good about yourself
* How to overcome depression
* How to live a full and successful life
* Learning to handle your money without it handling you
* The secrets of successful family living
* How to overcome stress
- trust your children to the care of dedicated nursery workers

WHY NOT GET A LIFT
INSTEAD OF A LETDOWN THIS SUNDAY?

 

[makesends]

OOOH! EXCITING!!!

For me, that is boring. The best thing is preaching that is more like teaching, about God —his nature, his character, his power, his purity, his supremacy, his sovereignty and so on. EVERYTHING else hangs on good theology-proper, in order to properly digested.

Just as a ferinstance: Self-esteem is taught at such places by such notions as, "we are all children of God", "God loves us, each and every one", and we are urged to have patience and "let God work", and so on. Baugh! Self-esteem comes from knowing God, and recognizing his untamed use of his creation and his creatures to be completely his for HIS purposes. THAT's where happiness begins. Life is not about us and our well-being.

 

[Hazelelponi]

Read it and reply with what you think, what you might do if this were real. So, what's your take?

I would laugh and walk away. I wouldn't be able to help laughing.

Not my sign so I can't remove it, so, really just walk away laughing.

It's not Christian. It's a joke.

But it might also spur the desire to share the Gospel more too.

Might make my own sign too, pointing out the errors of sign new church.

 

[Carbon]

At last! A new church for those who have given up on church services!

Huh.

Let's face it. Many people aren't active in church these days.

Don't need anyone to tell me that.

Why?
Too often

• the sermons are boring and dont relate to daily living

Why should a sermon in worshipping God be about daily living? The church might have counseling if you have issues.

• many churches seem more interested in your wallet than you

Well, that's true in many cases.

• members are unfriendly to visitors

This is true also, sadly.

• you wonder about the quality of the nursery care for your little ones

This can be a concern, but I believe children should be in the sanctuary during service.

Do you think attending church should be enjoyable?
WELL, WE'VE GOT GOOD NEWS FOR YOU!

Well, it should be about worshipping God. Enjoying it? Sure, Christians should enjoy worshiping God. But whether they enjoy it or not, being there and conducting it properly is the important part.

Valley church is a new church designed to meet your needs in the 2020s. At Valley church, you

Ha, designed to meet my needs? Okay, let's see what my needs are...

• meet new friends and get to know your neighbours
• enjoy exciting music with a contemporary flavor
• hear positive, practical messages which uplift you each week

Well, if these were my needs, then this social club would be the correct place for me to attend.

* How to feel good about yourself
* How to overcome depression
* How to live a full and successful life
* Learning to handle your money without it handling you
* The secrets of successful family living
* How to overcome stress
- trust your children to the care of dedicated nursery workers

Wow! Where did the worship of God go? There are places for all these things, but it's not in the sanctuary during worship!

WHY NOT GET A LIFT
INSTEAD OF A LETDOWN THIS SUNDAY?

As far as I am concerned, all this so-called church offers is a let down.

 

[Carbon]

What happened to the really important stuff?
Have pastors and church leaders forgotten all the warning passages in the bible?

The apostles obviously thought the church needed constantly to be reminded of the dangers of drifting,
Therefore we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. Hebrews 2:1.

Savage wolves,
28“Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. 29“I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. Acts 20:28-31
Deceitful men,
so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Eph 4:14.

And the need for sound doctrine in the midst of error,
1I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. 3For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. 5But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry. 2 Timothy 4:1-5

2 Tim, kinda hits home with this new church bulletin in the op.

Today in our world, we are susceptible to heretical teachings because in one form or another, they nurture and reflect the way we would have it be rather than the way God has provided, which is infinitely better than our way.

C. S. Lewis once said, "Our natural tendencies as fallen human beings is not toward atheism but idolatry.
Don't that hit the nail on the head!

Remember what 1 John 5:21, Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

 

[Carbon]

James Boice said this:

Lacking a sound, biblical, and well-understood theology, evangelicals have fallen prey to the pragmatism and consumerism of our times. Instead of calling God's people to worship and serve God, and teaching them how to do it, we treat parishioners as buyers and market the gospel as a "product." A therapeutic worldview has replaced classical categories such as sin and repentance, and many leaders have identified the gospel with such modern idols as a particular political philosophy, psychological views of man, and sociology. To the extent that the doctrines of the Bible no longer guide preaching, teaching, publishing, evangelism, worship, and the daily life of the people of God, to that extent evangelicalism has declined to become a movement that is shaped only by popular whim and sentimentality. To stand in awe of God once again, evangelicals must recognize these idols as idols and confess how much we have taken captive by them.


Curious about everyone's thoughts?


@Josheb ?

 

[Carbon]

Seems we are in need of another Reformation.

semper Reformada

 

[Hazelelponi]

At last! A new church for those who have given up on church services!

It's rarely the service they gave up on—it's the surrender.

Let's face it. Many people aren't active in church these days.
Why?

Many weren’t active in Christ to begin with.

Too often the sermons are boring

When God's Word seems lifeless, it’s often because we’re deaf to it.

• and dont relate to daily living

God's Word always relates to life—the question is whether we relate to it.

• many churches seem more interested in your wallet than you

Then don’t follow the money-changers to church. The faithful give—but not to be bought.

• members are unfriendly to visitors

Perhaps we confuse unfamiliar with unfriendly.

• you wonder about the quality of the nursery care for your little ones

Ask—or keep them with you and train them to worship.

Do you think attending church should be enjoyable?

“Enjoyable” is a subjective feeling, but church is about an objective reality—the worship of God according to His Word, in the gathering of His people. It's not primarily about personal enjoyment but about reverence, truth, and encountering the living God. That said, joy often follows faithfulness, not the other way around.

WELL, WE'VE GOT GOOD NEWS FOR YOU!

Valley church is a new church designed to meet your needs in the 2020s. At Valley church, you

• meet new friends and get to know your neighbours
• enjoy exciting music with a contemporary flavor
• hear positive, practical messages which uplift you each week

* How to feel good about yourself
* How to overcome depression
* How to live a full and successful life
* Learning to handle your money without it handling you
* The secrets of successful family living
* How to overcome stress
- trust your children to the care of dedicated nursery workers

WHY NOT GET A LIFT
INSTEAD OF A LETDOWN THIS SUNDAY?

“Good news” is what the church is supposed to preach—but this isn’t it.

Valley Church promises to meet the needs of the 2020s, but Christ came to meet the needs of eternity. He didn’t die to make us feel better about ourselves. He died because we were dead in sin. The gospel isn’t self-help with a Jesus sticker—it’s death, burial, and resurrection, and a call to come and die with Him that we might live.

If a church’s message could work without the cross, it isn’t Christian.

Yes, music can be moving, messages can be practical, and nurseries can be safe—but if Christ isn’t central, none of it will matter on the day we stand before a holy God. The church is not here to give you a “lift” on Sundays—it’s here to proclaim the crucified and risen Savior, to call sinners to repentance, and to conform the saints to Christ.

The gospel does not promise a successful life. It promises a crucified one that ends in resurrection. And that’s far better than “uplifting messages.” That’s real hope.

 

[Carbon]

There was a time when the church used to be defined by the gospel. Nowadays, in many places, this has drastically changed. The gospel is now defined by the church pragmatically in terms of whether it is relevant and acceptable to a society that, like all societies that have gone before, has no taste for a biblical gospel.

The gospel was not palatable to people in the days of the apostles, nor in the 16th century. The apostles and reformers did not taylor the gospel to fit the likes and dislikes of the time.

Looks like we are at a crossroads, will evangelists return to their Reformation roots or will they abandon them.

 

[Carbon]

It's rarely the service they gave up on—it's the surrender.



Many weren’t active in Christ to begin with.



When God's Word seems lifeless, it’s often because we’re deaf to it.



God's Word always relates to life—the question is whether we relate to it.



Then don’t follow the money-changers to church. The faithful give—but not to be bought.



Perhaps we confuse unfamiliar with unfriendly.




Ask—or keep them with you and train them to worship.



“Enjoyable” is a subjective feeling, but church is about an objective reality—the worship of God according to His Word, in the gathering of His people. It's not primarily about personal enjoyment but about reverence, truth, and encountering the living God. That said, joy often follows faithfulness, not the other way around.



“Good news” is what the church is supposed to preach—but this isn’t it.

Valley Church promises to meet the needs of the 2020s, but Christ came to meet the needs of eternity. He didn’t die to make us feel better about ourselves. He died because we were dead in sin. The gospel isn’t self-help with a Jesus sticker—it’s death, burial, and resurrection, and a call to come and die with Him that we might live.

If a church’s message could work without the cross, it isn’t Christian.

Yes, music can be moving, messages can be practical, and nurseries can be safe—but if Christ isn’t central, none of it will matter on the day we stand before a holy God. The church is not here to give you a “lift” on Sundays—it’s here to proclaim the crucified and risen Savior, to call sinners to repentance, and to conform the saints to Christ.

The gospel does not promise a successful life. It promises a crucified one that ends in resurrection. And that’s far better than “uplifting messages.” That’s real hope.

Amen!

 

[fastfredy0]

The best thing is preaching that is more like teaching, about God —his nature, his character, his power, his purity, his supremacy, his sovereignty and so on. EVERYTHING else hangs on good theology-proper, in order to properly digested.

Agreed.... wish they'd teach systematic theology in church .... but might rock the boat as there's various opinions.

enjoy exciting music with a contemporary flavor

I prefer well known hymns. So many contemporary songs about oneself and your relationship with God; whereas, I prefer songs about God only most of the time. I also don't like 7/11 songs which are songs with 7 words repeated 11 times. Projector screens made contemporary songs popular.

 

[Carbon]

I prefer well known hymns.

Same here.

 

[Hazelelponi]

...