A Dangerous Trend in Worship
KEN BAIRD

A family visits a worship service at the invitation of one of our members. When asked for their opinion, their response is "Frankly, I was bored" It happens again and again, and we begin to worry.

A thorough investigation reveals at least two factors that could explain the difficulty we are having attracting new people:

1. To a large extent, the present generation has been raised on a diet of television where only perfection is allowed in the finished product Mistakes and faux pas are edited out The speaker is dynamic and is every bit as important as the message he delivers. He is selected on the basis of his charisma and he is retained on the basis of the audience he attracts.

2. The theme of today's world is entertainment It may be sports, movies, TV, Nintendo, or it may take some other form. But give today's generation a pause in their entertainment and they are immediately bored

Our conclusion is that we must make our worship more entertaining. We must be more conscious of the charisma and attracting power of our preachers. After all, we can't teach people if we bore them. And so the old proverbial end justifies the means.

What's wrong with such an approach?

1. It's based on a complete misunderstanding of the purpose of worship. Worship is first and foremost to give something back to God in response to what He's given to us. An example is "We love Him because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).

2. Our problem is not that we have provided a boring worship service. The solution is not that we must entertain this generation in order to interest them in God.

3. Our problem is that we haven't adequately taught what true worship is. We haven't instilled in our people such a love for God and Jesus that they will just naturally want to respond to Them from that love. And that love and that response, directed to God, and not to anyone else, will be so great that others will see that we have been with Jesus. To be bored with worship or to be concerned because someone else is bored with worship is to not understand worship and may mean that we haven't really worshiped!

The Mount Dora Christian Home and Bible School’s “Change for Children” collection cans should be turned in by Sunday May 11th, to Mike or Karen Thompson. Change is scheduled to be counted here at the building on Thursday May 15th.

Change Your Directory
Dorothy Garner’s mail address is incorrect in the directory listing. Please correct your directory to read: [Go to "Members Only" for Info]

GARNER, Dottie .....................***-****
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Also Clay Patnaude’s current address is as follows:

PATNAUDE, Clay
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Online Bible Lessons
Gaylon West has developed and posted a series of lessons entitled Electronic Bible Correspondence Course on his web-site at Verizon. You may access these lessons from the home page of the Orange Street site. Contact Gaylon if you have any comments or run into any problems.

Email List
More and more members of the congregation now have access to email accounts. If you have an email account and it is not listed in our online Directory or if you are not currently receiving periodical congregational news updates - please give you email address to Carl or Nancy Chambers and we will see that you are added.

If the truth were to be revealed, thousands of death certificates would probably record that the victims died of "grudgitis". We've heard people say, through clenched teeth, "I'll get even with him if it's the last thing I ever do." Often it is.

Upcoming Area Events

April 27-30 - Gospel Meeting 7:00 pm nightly
New Port Richey, w/Steve Fuchs (Fox)

May 2-4 - “Youth Retreat”
Weeki Wachee Christian Bible Camp