What happened to church?

 We went to church on Sunday for the first time since the kids and I moved in with Greg, a year and a half ago. Admittedly, it was a fun service! There was a band, smoke effects, light effects, a big screen with swirly patterns to keep our attention! The sermon was full of comic relief and amusing anecdotes!

But...

 When did we start going to church to be performed for, rather than to hear God's word? When did the focus of the service become entertainment? When did our worship become something we had to be amused with to stick with?

 The smoke effects aren't for God, they're for us. We live in this modern world where our senses are so overloaded with entertainment and the idea that everything we do should be for fun, that everything we do should have an immediate reward, that we apparently need a man behind a curtain to give us a show. That man behind the curtain isn't God, it's a cowardly wizard, and he's as fake as the one in the emerald city. We don't need him. Our church services have become so human-centered, and we don't even realize it. They will know us by our LOVE, not our smoke machine or killer drum solos or guitar skills, or our ability to jump up and down on stage while we sing or in-house coffee shops.

 There's nothing wrong with entertainment. There's definitely nothing wrong with a church service that grabs our attention and draws us in. But when the thing drawing us in is the flashiness, the comic relief, not God's word, we have a problem.

 The bigger a church gets, the less focus there is on God. The less focus there is on the fellowship He intends for us. And we don't even know it. We get out into the community now and then, but then we draw back and go on buying ourselves lights and smoke and fancy guitars and giant screens to keep the congregation entertained.  God doesn't care about those and bringing them into your service doesn't impress God. It doesn't add to His glorification. It adds to our own glorification, the glorification of our own pride. Our church has this and this and this. It's amazing.

 Is it, really? In the attempt to stay "relevant," the church is instead fueling a self-serving attitude and less desire to really hear God's word. The more money a church has, the less relevant it really is. Smoke screens are just that. We need to look through the smoke and reach out for what's real. We need to BE real.

 Be real, Christians.