LETTERS: Churches shouldn’t follow the fads of the world

Their growth is accomplished through surveys and worldly marketing means. The heroes generally held up for our youth today are professional athletes and “rock” stars, who are paraded before the church as if to say, “This is your ideal; this is the kind of person Jesus wants you to be.” The effort is to attract youth through entertainment rather than offer them the challenge to “take up the cross and follow” the Lord Jesus Christ.

Churches try to accommodate themselves to the current fads of the world. They discard the old hymns that are both musical and edifying and replace them with “praise choruses” such as were used 50 years ago in Christian camps because they were simple, easy to learn, and didn’t require a song book. But when the children came back from camp, they readily joined the rest of the congregation in singing hymns with meaning and which require some thought. It is a serious mistake for church leaders to fashion a program after the ideas of untrained youth.

Jesus did not cave in to the immature concepts of youth in order to appeal to them. To the rich young ruler (Mark 10) He sternly said, “One thing thou lackest: go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me” (Mark 10:21). This young man failed the test, but do you really think the Lord has “softened” the requirements for us today? The “easy faith” that has become so popular doesn’t much resemble the gospel of the kingdom, which Jesus preached. It is tragic when so many take the worldly ambitions of the flesh, give them religious titles, and then peddle them as God-given “ministries.”

Sincerely,

Clem Thurman

The Gospel Minutes