Comments on Chris' Week 2- Wed

I agree whole heartedly with you here Chris. We need to be very careful how we commercialize church and ministry. However, I don't think Jesus had to deal with the kind or amount of commercialism in the church back then like we do today. I think the Western Church is going through an identity crisis. There is a permeating sense of irrelevance in the Western Church as membership drops in mainline denoms and many non denoms. The Church is no longer the authority on reality like it used to be. So by default the Church is looking for ways to regain some of its prestige. I believe this can be seen in many churches focus on programming, entertainment and fun. Many churches believe that they need to be the hub for all things artistic...this way people will take them seriously. I find that many churches in their admirable pursuit of trying to reach people are asking the wrong question. I think their question is, "How can we make Christianity and Church look cool?" Or at least, "How can we keep Christianity and Church from looking uncool?" Ultimately these are the same question. I think these kinds of questions lead us into a paradigm of unbiblical values and turns our focus onto trusting methods instead of the message.