nightclub worship?

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guardian1

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i’m curious to know what you guys think. there is a local church (the largest in our area) that has a saturday ‘night life’ worship service. my wife dragged me there and i was appalled. the sanctuary had been cleared and round tables set up. each table had a tableclothand a candle on it (so far, so good). but then it came time for ‘worship’… they played hard rock christian music,had the lights turned off, ran a fog machine, etc. i thought i was supposed to be at church, not a concert. bear in mind that i haven’t attended church but maybe a dozen times in the last decade, but isn’t this kind of worship sacriligeous? or is it just me? my wife thought it was great because it would reach out to people, who don’t want to go to a “fuddy duddy” church. do we have the ‘right’ to have this kind of service to bring people in? what’s the point of getting people into church if there is no reverence (imo) for God? do you guys think this is an ok thing to do?
 
It seems to have caused you consider your faith more…😃
 
It’s one thing to reach out to people with a true and honest message, but it’s quite another to reach out by imitating something you are not. That is really just bait and switch. Looks like a secular nightclub, but it’s really a religious service.

My strongest objection to all such attempts is that by trying to imitate the secular world in look and music, they naturally invite the observer to compare these attempts with the “real thing” found in the secular world. And in such comparisons the “real thing” will always come off as better, more authentic. Let’s face it, nightclubs are better at being nightclubs than churches are. Secular bands are better at playing rock than church bands are.

So, when the observer (those people who are the targets of such outreach) makes the inevitable comparison in his/her mind, the result is usually something like “well this is a pretty lame imitation!” And if these expressions of the faith are pale imitations of the “real world” then it is also natural to conclude that the Christian faith itself is somehow just a pale imitation of the “real world”. This is not true, but it is a natural conclusion which grows out of “let’s be more like the outside world!” thinking.

If people want secular entertainment they know where to find it. If they want God (and they all do, for God has built this desire into each of us) then give them God. Give them true Christian worship, not Christian-worship-disguised-(badly)-as-party.

My two cents, as they say.
 
Well i find it is ok if you are spreading the correct message, in fact in my country we are trying to let others non-believers know that Church is not boring, Church can be a nice place to go, we sing rock Hillsongs and have wonderful sermons. Of course tradition Christian will disagree with me, but let alone if there are a pool of teenager who rather go disco then to go church, so why can’t we have rock Hillsongs, and decor the Church into a more trendy place with spot light (just like disco) for them to come and listen to Gospel. Pple might say we lurk such group of pple to church, but i rather they come to a disco like church then to go to a secular disco who does not have preaching and worshipping.

Our church used to be located near a Red light district. We have members venturing to this area to bring hope and salvation to Hookers, we don’t deprive nor reject them but instead we wanted to show them God’s never forsake them and we hope to bring light into their life!!! Thus during our early days we have gangster and hookers coming into our church to service!!!

Gospel is standard, but spreading and worshipping is not fixed. Of course tradition pple can go to tradtion church, modern pple goes to modern church. Most importantly is to win lose soul and not hardened ourselves to see that God is standard in doing everything, we need to keep our tradtion practise but yet needs to incorporate it into the modern world. The world is changing and we aim people living in the OT/NT world where churches are very very tradition, let alone i experience myself , where most non-believers find churches are BORING AND DULL, i even have a frez who frequent to Mass (becoz of her Catholic’s BF) fall asleep till the Mass end becoz she just couldn’t find anything that excite her to stay awake…i rather see her as a customer and learning how to win a customer to patronize church, rather then to hard sell Gospel to her in a tradtion and unstrategize way where she distant away from me even further…

The usual case for non-believers are ; after their lst time to church , they do not wanted to come anymore…so we need to let these group of customers know church is another attractive place to patronize…
 
guardian1 said:
i’m curious to know what you guys think. there is a local church (the largest in our area) that has a saturday ‘night life’ worship service. my wife dragged me there and i was appalled. the sanctuary had been cleared and round tables set up. each table had a tableclothand a candle on it (so far, so good). but then it came time for ‘worship’… they played hard rock christian music,had the lights turned off, ran a fog machine, etc. i thought i was supposed to be at church, not a concert. bear in mind that i haven’t attended church but maybe a dozen times in the last decade, but isn’t this kind of worship sacriligeous? or is it just me? my wife thought it was great because it would reach out to people, who don’t want to go to a “fuddy duddy” church. do we have the ‘right’ to have this kind of service to bring people in? what’s the point of getting people into church if there is no reverence (imo) for God? do you guys think this is an ok thing to do?
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Having the church open on Saturday night is a great idea. That way people who have been to a nightclub, maybe got drunk, maybe had a near occasion of sexual sin, have somewhere safe to go.
However trying to present Christianity as a sub-genre of rock is a bad idea. There are very few decent Christian rock bands, and even fewer decent rock settings of the Mass. Instead of rock gospel, sing compline in traditional plainchant. It did the rounds of the discos a while back.

One thing you don’t want to do is make the priest’s life difficult, however. It is his job to arrage the services to meet the pastoral needs of the congregation, and he has the right to expect co-operation in that. You don’t refuse to sing because you don’t like the choice of music.
 
happygal said:
The world is changing and we aim people living in the OT/NT world where churches are very very tradition, let alone i experience myself , where most non-believers find churches are BORING AND DULL, i even have a frez who frequent to Mass (becoz of her Catholic’s BF) fall asleep till the Mass end becoz she just couldn’t find anything that excite her to stay awake…i rather see her as a customer and learning how to win a customer to patronize church, rather then to hard sell Gospel to her in a tradtion and unstrategize way where she distant away from me even further…
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If people go to the Mass seeking entertainment, they are already going for the wrong reasons. Making the Mass or other worship services less “boring” will just reinforce incorrect ideas and keep them coming to church for the entertainment.

We live in an entertainment-hungry culture. It is something we should be working against, not promoting.
 
May we presume that this was not a Catholic Church (O please :gopray2: )?
 
happygal said:
…i rather see her as a customer and learning how to win a customer to patronize church, rather then to hard sell Gospel to her in a tradtion and unstrategize way where she distant away from me even further…

The usual case for non-believers are ; after their lst time to church , they do not wanted to come anymore…so we need to let these group of customers know church is another attractive place to patronize…
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I think this identifies the problem pretty well.
 
mercygate said:
Happygal’s native language is not English. Can we give her the benefit of the doubt?
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No, no, I think he got what she was saying. I think he’s saying the problem is that in today’s world too many churches are trying to attract parishioners/members by trying to give them what they want. Much like businesses try to attract customers by trying to come out with the latest and greatest thing.
 
mercygate said:
Happygal’s native language is not English. Can we give her the benefit of the doubt?
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But I’d say that she has identified precisely the thinking behind e.g. nightclub-churches with rock bands. And “seeker-friendly” mega-churches with fancy coffee and pastry courts and food and drink holders at each seat. The mentality does seem to be about attracting customers, selling the Gospel, and gaining their patronage. If Happygal did not mean to use such language, then her error was a very fortuitous one, because she hit the nail on the head.

thebereancall.org/Newsletter/html/2004/mar04.php

amazon.com/This-Little-Church-Went-Market/dp/0852345968

svchapel.org/Resources/Articles/articles_list.asp?ID=3 (articles about market-driven churches)

forbes.com/2003/09/17/cz_lk_0917megachurch.html
 
I think this sort of thing would be better for a youth group night but certainly not for a worship service of any kind, Protestant or Catholic (and especially NOT Catholic).

Catholics attend Mass in order to worship God, hear his word, and receive the graces of the Eucharist. And it is up to us as parents, teachers, religious, et al, to instruct our young people in what the Mass is and why it ought to be the height of their worship of God not something they have to go to and sit through when they’d rather be somewhere else.
 
RCCDefender said:
No, no, I think he got what she was saying. I think he’s saying the problem is that in today’s world too many churches are trying to attract parishioners/members by trying to give them what they want. Much like businesses try to attract customers by trying to come out with the latest and greatest thing.
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Sorry. I read too hastily. I thought she was DEFENDING the nightclub idea.
 
guardian1 said:
i’m curious to know what you guys think. there is a local church (the largest in our area) that has a saturday ‘night life’ worship service. my wife dragged me there and i was appalled. the sanctuary had been cleared and round tables set up. each table had a tableclothand a candle on it (so far, so good). but then it came time for ‘worship’… they played hard rock christian music,had the lights turned off, ran a fog machine, etc. i thought i was supposed to be at church, not a concert. bear in mind that i haven’t attended church but maybe a dozen times in the last decade, but isn’t this kind of worship sacriligeous? or is it just me? my wife thought it was great because it would reach out to people, who don’t want to go to a “fuddy duddy” church. do we have the ‘right’ to have this kind of service to bring people in? what’s the point of getting people into church if there is no reverence (imo) for God? do you guys think this is an ok thing to do?
Click to expand...
There’s a Christian nightclub in Michigan called “Visions”. I went there with some friends once.

We were too SOBER to drive home afterwards!😃
 
I can understand where this comes from. Put yourself outside of what you know, and put your self inside of a person that just wants God. They don’t want anything else, just God. They don’t want trappings, they don’t want sermons, they don’t want some stiff guy droning on and on about something they don’t care about. They don’t want people’s judgmental garbage. They don’t want people’s rules on what is good or bad about communing with God. They just want God. I dig people like that. I can talk to them. I can relate to them. Shoot, I want to hang out with them.

So what if you don’t like the music or the atmosphere. Are they singing to God? Are they praising God? You don’t understand it? So what. Not Holy enough for you? Get over yourself. David danced before the Lord to the point of being lewd in the eyes of his wife. He gave her the smack down when she tried to chide him for it, now didn’t he? (cf 2 Samuel 6:12-23)

Just because a thing is not to your personal liking does not make that thing bad.

As Catholics we see “worship” and automatically think “Mass.” We are in the minority. People see worship in all sorts of ways, and seek to worship God in every way. Isn’t it far better on a Saturday night to sing praises to God than go bar hoping? Should we not rejoice and be glad that God is praised? Look in the Old Testament. Look at the festivals they had in worshipping God! They partied for days on end! Musical instruments upon musical instruments played for days, dancing, and joy. When and why did we all become dirge mumblers? It’s OK to be joyful. It’s OK to be happy. Might as well be joyful and happy with God on a Saturday night.

So don’t worry be happy 😉
 
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