Unfortunately there are lots of these churches around. I went to one last Sunday, out of curiousity.
I tell you what happened. The church was based in a rented building. I have no problem with that..many church gatherings take place in school halls for example. This on was held in a sports stadium, run by a trust, which is funded by pokies. As I went in, they had ushers in t-shirts saying 'heal the sick' 'love thy neighbour' 'feed the poor' etc. I thought 'ok, they like to proclaim things on t-shirts, and they are Jesus words, no problem'. So I went in, and they were welcoming and friendly. As you might expect. They had a worship band. I'd been in enough churches to accept this.. as one friend had invited me to a christian music festival before, where bands played all types of music, even rock, with christian lyrics. Not that you could really hear them above the noise. The band was very loud, and the lyrics were all about worshipping God ,how he was the most high, we bow down to noone except him, etc. But a thought entered my mind, which God were these people really worshipping? I couldn't recall any mention of Jesus.
Then one of the pastors came up and everyone clapped and cheered. It was more like a performance and a show than a service. He welcomed us visitors, and urged people to accept pamphlets and leaflets which talked about 'heart for the harvest' and tithing over and above 10 percent of your income. The tithing seemed really important to him. I'm not sure where this money went. It was implied this went out into the community. We were shown photos, as evidence, but I didn't see anyone come up and testify anything. Then he said how his life changed because of Jesus, but didn't specify how. Maybe he was more 'successful'. I don't know.
Another person came up and said she had some prizes of christian music to give away. hmm. Then some more songs, a short prayer, the offering (in a BUCKET), glossy pamphlets handed out, prayer for 'financial breakthrough', talk about people being 'impacted'. Impacted??? Was that even in the bible?
Then the pastor came out and did her sermon. But before this, she warmed eveyone up (or hyped) by asking half the crowd to sing something really fast, and the other half to try and beat it. Some Christian song everyone knew, I can't remember, 'lord something'. She first talked about her life and how she wanted to get married and kept hinting to her boyfriend, saying her message was just to be happy and wait on what God wants to give you TODAY. Then it was like she'd looked up all the words of 'Today' in a concordance of the Bible, and started quoting a whole lot of verses from all over the bible that had the word 'today' in it. To stop worrying about the future, or the past, and to just live in the present moment. I thought to myself. She might as well just tell people to read 'the power of now'.
Then we had to sit through lots of commercials. Yes, 'Christian' ads. And we had 'intermission' for coffee and biscuits, not communion. They were adverstising 'loud' retreats, how fun God was, for teens with lots of 'doof doof' music. Yay God.
Also an ad for conferences, where you PAID to hear people preach the gospel. I don't know if this was Jesus' gospel. And then the ultimate theme, which was this month was for making a commitment to give money to the church. 'harvest' they called it.
Then finally, for the rest of the service, there was entertainment by a comedy group.
I just could not sit through this. I left. I had come to worship God, not people.
I think new believers especially need to be aware of these false churches. Their Bible isn't the Holy Bible, and the more I read, the more I think they base their church on an american best-selling book about running the church as a business for profit. Do not be deceived! It is called 'the purpose driven church'...
