It's Not An Amusement Park

 

Enter His gates with thanksgiving,

and into His courts with praise:

be thankful unto Him, and

bless His name.

Psalm 100:4

Last Sunday, I was reminded of one of my favorite teachers of all time...Mrs. Lilley, who taught in my junior high school. One class she taught was a combination of penmanship and orthography. First day in her class, I pretty much knew what would be involved when it came to penmanship, but knew nothing about orthography. At first I didn't like that part of the class, but it came to be one of the most valuable classes I had in all of my educational experience including college. In orthography we basically learned how to dissect a word that contained two or more syllables putting the meaning of those parts of the word together to define the word. It is a “skill” I continue to use to this day.

For an example of how this skill benefits me today, I was recently reminded in one of my pastors sermons, of the word “amuse.” For some reason, I quickly scanned that word and it's two parts in my mind. It immediately struck a spiritual chord with me. That “a” at the beginning of “amuse” means “no,not.” The second part of the word, “muse” means to “think or meditate.” So “a-muse” means in essence to not think or meditate. When amused or being amused, you and I are removed from serious thinking or meditating..a diversion so to speak from the serious, to being amused or entertained.

Have you noticed in recent years the trend of many of our churches across America to go the amusement route. Churches are giving up on having choirs...now they have what my husband refers to as a “chorus lines.” Many are going to the music of the world...same melody line and beat with Christian words applied and not even that many words. Many Sunday schools are going to group teaching or should I say entertaining their children and youth. Folks don't seem to have a deep interest in good Bible preaching. Many church attenders want to attend and leave with not much of a change in their lives.

What's the point? We must be very careful in today's spiritual climate to avoid spiritual amusement as much as possible. That doesn't mean we don't smile, laugh or have a good time at church. It does mean having a good perspective on what is appropriate for the local church. I wonder sometimes what the early church fathers in Jerusalem would think if they could come back and visit some of our churches. What would Paul think of a rock 'n roll atmosphere in some services? I think they would all be shocked and sickened.

I have looked at some churches' bulletins to see what activities are offered to mostly “amuse” their members. I found some really amazing activities. Some such activities are: Garden Club, Book Club, exercise classes of various types, Sewing Circles, and yes, there are some Bible study groups. Many Bible study groups are taught through videos which can easily become entertainment in nature. I see children in church playing computer games and have even seen adults doing it as well. Often you and I hear phones ring during a service. We have someone in our church who has a phone alarm that goes off at about five minutes before the end of our Sunday morning service. Can't figure that one out unless it's meant to be a hint to the pastor that his time is about up.

Believe it or not, I'm not mad at anyone. I do think we've gotten so far away from what the church is meant to be. It's primarily to win the lost to Christ and then grow those babes in Christ to some maturity. It's also for the purpose of teaching and growing Christians to even greater spiritual maturity. It's to serve others who are in need and needs can certainly vary in our day as well as in those early days of the church.

Is Jesus not enough for us anymore or is this entertainment and electronic age keeping us from what He would desire that we be. Sometimes even our minds can be pre-occupied with circumstances that can keep us from times of worship in our church services. I often find myself guilty of having the straying thoughts and not on the things that are important at that time.

As is usual, Scripture gives us some answers and we see that in Psalm 100. We can even train our children regarding some of these things and hope that they will also learn by our example. From verse four we are told (no suggestion) to:

• Enter His gates with thanksgiving
• Enter with praise
• Be thanking to Him
• Bless His name

If we approach a church service with those attitudes, I wonder how much more our lives would be enriched for good and for God. He so deserves our undivided attention even if we need to work hard at removing unnecessary distractions. In it all, may our supreme desire be to please our Heavenly Father in all things, loving Him like we've never loved Him before and giving Him our undivided attention. He deserves no less of us, especially when in our church services.

Dear Father, forgive me for being so inattentive at times when in Your house where I should worship You instead of having a wandering mind. I love You but want to love You even more.  Help me to take advantage of every opportunity in my church and elsewhere to worship you. In Jesus' precious name....Amen.