Today, entertainment is expected in religion. Parents ask: "What kind of programs do you have for our children? Do you have special music or church league sports teams? Are there parties and social meals, and trips planned for our youth and senior citizens?  In other words, what does the church have for ME and MINE? 
 
Entertainment in religion is utilized to make people feel good, to draw in the people, and to keep up attendance numbers. But understand, what you win people WITH is what you win them TO! For example, a church in Ohio rented a movie theater for their worship, or rather their entertainment, services. One member said: People don’t come in with quiet reverence, it’s just like going to the movies. Instead of popcorn and soda, as at the movies, people just grab cups of chocolate-flavored coffee and jelly doughnuts on their way into worship." The report says, The service starts out with a skit about golfing and religion, and moves into rock n’ roll with a heavy drum beat that brings nearly everyone out of their seats…There’s dancing instead of kneeling…Scripture often still plays a role but in less formalized readings." 
   
Why do we assemble? Is it for what is in it for ME and MINE, or is it to honor and praise God? We badly need to teach ourselves and our children that it is not all about ME and MINE, but it is about the great "I AM." Only when our priorities are in the right order will we find ourselves walking into the worship assembly focused on God rather than on ourselves. 
   
Sadly, many churches today are offering what will attract the crowds, by offering various programs and activities that will attract the most people, rather than centering on Christ and His Word. When will men learn that the worship of God is regulated by the God we worship? One said: "When we believe that we should be satisfied rather than God be glorified in our worship, then we put God below ourselves as though He had been made for us rather than that we had been made for Him." 
    
Acceptable worship is God-ordained, not humanly constructed. It has naught to do with human thought or injunction, rather, it requires us to rise above the thoughts and ways of man to the thoughts and ways of God (Isa.55: 8-9). It is His will, not our own (Matt. 7: 21; Lk. 6: 46). 

​

Dennis Abernathy