The Greatest Show On Earth
The Greatest Show on Earth
By: Dr. Danny Purvis
I was in seminary when I was first acquainted with what has been called “the church growth movement”. Long associated with churches that pioneered the advent of the megachurch (Saddleback and Willow Creek), these churches seemed to have at least one thing in common. They heavily emphasized production values and entertainment over in-depth preaching of God’s Word. It was more important to have huge numbers of people present for the weekly spectacles than the content the people were actually hearing. Slick production replaced sound preaching. Gimmicky eye-candy replaced an emphasis on doctrine. Unfortunately, we have not recovered.
One of my extremely wise seminary professors told me at that time: If it takes a circus to get them there…it’ll take a circus to keep them there. I don’t normally do this, but I want to include a long excerpt here for your perusal. This was said by Charles Spurgeon:
An evil is in the professed camp of the Lord, so gross in its impudence, that the most shortsighted Christian can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years this evil has developed at an alarming rate. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments! The devil has seldom done a more clever thing, than hinting to the Church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them. From speaking out the gospel, the Church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses! My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the Church.
If it is a Christian work why did not Christ speak of it? “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel.” No such words, however, are to be found. Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all His apostles. What was the attitude of the apostolic Church to the world? “You are the salt of the world,” not the sugar candy; something the world will spit out, not swallow. Had Christ introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into his mission, he would have been more popular when they went back, because of the searching nature of His teaching. I do not hear him say, “Run after these people Peter and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick Peter, we must get the people somehow.” Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them. In vain will the Epistles be searched to find any trace of this gospel of amusement! Their message is, “Come out, keep out, keep clean out!” Anything approaching fooling is conspicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and employed no other weapon.
After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the church had a prayer meeting but they did not pray, “Lord grant unto thy servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are.” If they ceased not from preaching Christ, they had not time for arranging entertainments. Scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). That is the only difference! Lord, clear the church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her, and bring us back to apostolic methods. Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to affect the end desired. It works havoc among young converts. Let the careless and scoffers, who thank God because the church met them halfway, speak and testify. Let the heavy laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment has been God’s link in the chain of the conversion stand up! There are none to answer. The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today’s ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as fruit from the root. The need is biblical doctrine, so understood and felt, that it sets men on fire.
Spurgeon wrote this in the 1800s. It sounds exactly as if it could be written today…because it could. Because of what my seminary professor said to me…I have used the term “circus churches” to describe this phenomenon. But let’s be clear. The Bible does not, in any way that I can see, specifically tell us the steps to include in a worship service or provide a universal template for an order of worship. So, we do have flexibility when we design one. However, circus churches focus their design on entertainment. I had a young man who told me once that his previous pastor (the young man was on staff there) said in a staff meeting that 30% of their focus should be on God’s Word and that 70% of their focus needs to be getting people in the service. In other words…70% of their focus would be centered on getting butts into seats. I was speechless. I could imagine a pastor thinking that to himself…but never thought one would say it out loud. A mere 30% focus on God’s Word.
I’ve seen what this looks like. I’ve seen a church floating a pastor in on a wire over the congregation. I’ve seen a church focus their entire worship service on a Super Bowl theme which included (and I am not making this up) kicking the Bible like it was a football. Locally I saw a church with a big, Christmas production including secular Christmas songs and a line-up of young ladies in red holiday dresses that seemed to me to a bit too short. Another floated in a sleigh with Santa on it. I’ve seen pastors shooting basketball on stage…others shooting water guns at the crowd. Another designed the stage to look like a life-sized version of the game Life. You know what? People will remember those things. But I wonder if they remember the message that day? This young man I mentioned earlier told me once about his pastor one time throwing frisbees out to the congregation and how well that had gone over. He recounted it in glowing terms. I listened patiently and then asked: What was the message about? To say I could hear crickets chirping would be doing a disservice to all crickets everywhere. But he remembered the frisbees.
God did not call us to entertain people. The world does a great job of that. And we cannot compete anyway. Orlando is the most visited vacation location in the world. Companies spend billions in the name of entertainment. Not only are we not supposed to compete with that…we literally cannot compete with those resources. Therein lay the point. When these circus churches put an emphasis on entertainment, they are making a clear statement. The statement is: God’s Word is not enough. We have to jazz things up because we can’t just expect them to sit there and listen to God’s Word. That is exactly the expectation. This colossally stupid idea that in order to attract the world we (the church) have to become more like the world is not only moronic, but completely antithetical to Scripture. The church, to be truly successful in taking part in God’s redemptive plan, needs to be the antithesis to the world. It needs to provide people with something the world absolutely cannot give them: The Gospel. We all carry little rectangular devices in our pocket that can provide endless hours of mindless entertainment. It is literally at our fingertips.
In a worship service we can provide the one thing the world couldn’t provide if they had a million years to try. The Gospel. God’s Word. The truth. Peace. Grace. Forgiveness of sin. The promise of heaven. Rest for our souls and purpose for our lives. Or, I guess…maybe we can just throw frisbees…shoot basketball…dress girls in short skirts…float pastors across the crowd. In other words…maybe we should just be a circus. Because surely that will bring the lost sinner to a loving God. And if not…well at least they had fun.
-Dr. Danny Purvis
By: Dr. Danny Purvis
I was in seminary when I was first acquainted with what has been called “the church growth movement”. Long associated with churches that pioneered the advent of the megachurch (Saddleback and Willow Creek), these churches seemed to have at least one thing in common. They heavily emphasized production values and entertainment over in-depth preaching of God’s Word. It was more important to have huge numbers of people present for the weekly spectacles than the content the people were actually hearing. Slick production replaced sound preaching. Gimmicky eye-candy replaced an emphasis on doctrine. Unfortunately, we have not recovered.
One of my extremely wise seminary professors told me at that time: If it takes a circus to get them there…it’ll take a circus to keep them there. I don’t normally do this, but I want to include a long excerpt here for your perusal. This was said by Charles Spurgeon:
An evil is in the professed camp of the Lord, so gross in its impudence, that the most shortsighted Christian can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years this evil has developed at an alarming rate. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments! The devil has seldom done a more clever thing, than hinting to the Church that part of their mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them. From speaking out the gospel, the Church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses! My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the Church.
If it is a Christian work why did not Christ speak of it? “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, and provide amusement for those who do not relish the gospel.” No such words, however, are to be found. Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all His apostles. What was the attitude of the apostolic Church to the world? “You are the salt of the world,” not the sugar candy; something the world will spit out, not swallow. Had Christ introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into his mission, he would have been more popular when they went back, because of the searching nature of His teaching. I do not hear him say, “Run after these people Peter and tell them we will have a different style of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick Peter, we must get the people somehow.” Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them. In vain will the Epistles be searched to find any trace of this gospel of amusement! Their message is, “Come out, keep out, keep clean out!” Anything approaching fooling is conspicuous by its absence. They had boundless confidence in the gospel and employed no other weapon.
After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the church had a prayer meeting but they did not pray, “Lord grant unto thy servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are.” If they ceased not from preaching Christ, they had not time for arranging entertainments. Scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They turned the world upside down (Acts 17:6). That is the only difference! Lord, clear the church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her, and bring us back to apostolic methods. Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to affect the end desired. It works havoc among young converts. Let the careless and scoffers, who thank God because the church met them halfway, speak and testify. Let the heavy laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment has been God’s link in the chain of the conversion stand up! There are none to answer. The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today’s ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as fruit from the root. The need is biblical doctrine, so understood and felt, that it sets men on fire.
Spurgeon wrote this in the 1800s. It sounds exactly as if it could be written today…because it could. Because of what my seminary professor said to me…I have used the term “circus churches” to describe this phenomenon. But let’s be clear. The Bible does not, in any way that I can see, specifically tell us the steps to include in a worship service or provide a universal template for an order of worship. So, we do have flexibility when we design one. However, circus churches focus their design on entertainment. I had a young man who told me once that his previous pastor (the young man was on staff there) said in a staff meeting that 30% of their focus should be on God’s Word and that 70% of their focus needs to be getting people in the service. In other words…70% of their focus would be centered on getting butts into seats. I was speechless. I could imagine a pastor thinking that to himself…but never thought one would say it out loud. A mere 30% focus on God’s Word.
I’ve seen what this looks like. I’ve seen a church floating a pastor in on a wire over the congregation. I’ve seen a church focus their entire worship service on a Super Bowl theme which included (and I am not making this up) kicking the Bible like it was a football. Locally I saw a church with a big, Christmas production including secular Christmas songs and a line-up of young ladies in red holiday dresses that seemed to me to a bit too short. Another floated in a sleigh with Santa on it. I’ve seen pastors shooting basketball on stage…others shooting water guns at the crowd. Another designed the stage to look like a life-sized version of the game Life. You know what? People will remember those things. But I wonder if they remember the message that day? This young man I mentioned earlier told me once about his pastor one time throwing frisbees out to the congregation and how well that had gone over. He recounted it in glowing terms. I listened patiently and then asked: What was the message about? To say I could hear crickets chirping would be doing a disservice to all crickets everywhere. But he remembered the frisbees.
God did not call us to entertain people. The world does a great job of that. And we cannot compete anyway. Orlando is the most visited vacation location in the world. Companies spend billions in the name of entertainment. Not only are we not supposed to compete with that…we literally cannot compete with those resources. Therein lay the point. When these circus churches put an emphasis on entertainment, they are making a clear statement. The statement is: God’s Word is not enough. We have to jazz things up because we can’t just expect them to sit there and listen to God’s Word. That is exactly the expectation. This colossally stupid idea that in order to attract the world we (the church) have to become more like the world is not only moronic, but completely antithetical to Scripture. The church, to be truly successful in taking part in God’s redemptive plan, needs to be the antithesis to the world. It needs to provide people with something the world absolutely cannot give them: The Gospel. We all carry little rectangular devices in our pocket that can provide endless hours of mindless entertainment. It is literally at our fingertips.
In a worship service we can provide the one thing the world couldn’t provide if they had a million years to try. The Gospel. God’s Word. The truth. Peace. Grace. Forgiveness of sin. The promise of heaven. Rest for our souls and purpose for our lives. Or, I guess…maybe we can just throw frisbees…shoot basketball…dress girls in short skirts…float pastors across the crowd. In other words…maybe we should just be a circus. Because surely that will bring the lost sinner to a loving God. And if not…well at least they had fun.
-Dr. Danny Purvis
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