You didn't answer my questions, Counselor - you changed the subject.
I'm not talking about what happened then, I'm talking about what's happening now. Is it true, or is it untrue that one of the first steps in Rick Warren's PDC process is to conduct a survey to find out what is keeping people from going to church?
"Felt needs" is another way of saying "fleshly desires", and if you're winning them into the church by meeting those desires, then you're winning them TO a christian life which incorporates those desires instead of mortifying them.
What happens when the music stops entertaining them? When they get used to the coffee? When they've bought all the guides and books the store has to carry? When the snappy t-shirts don't fit? When they 'come down' off of the "experience"? Such a reliance on worldly things leads to a shallow understanding of faith, and is quickly dissipated. See the parable of the seeds as an example.
The reprobate have only one, true 'felt need'. The need to avoid eternal damnation by clinging to Christ. Everything else is fluff.
>>But we can offer them a smile and a cup of coffee and a promise that the experience may just change their lives.<<
Who are you to promise that? Such an approach is a far cry from Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost. No coffee, warm smiles, or "luring" there - just the straight-up, undilluted Gospel truth.
The very fact that you call worship an "experience" says a lot about the showmanship that goes behind it. Like it's some sort of circus act or Pink Floyd Lazer Show. Calling it an "experience" automatically shows that it's designed for the person, not God. Worship then becomes focused on what the individual can get from it, rather than it's true intent - which is to give God what He is due.
And that, my friend, is misguided and man-centered.
No. If you are GETTING THEM INTO CHURCH, then you are doing what Paul said is sometimes necessary to win them to Christ. To the weak he became weak. These people are weak. They need a reason to get up on Sunday and go into Church. So you make the experience somewhat comfortable and once they are in there you bombard them with the Word of Truth.
Now I disagree with Warren's non-confrontive sermon style, but that is his style. But if we don't get these people to a place where they can hear the word of God, then we are not doing our job as a Church.
What happens when the music stops entertaining them? When they get used to the coffee? When they've bought all the guides and books the store has to carry? When the snappy t-shirts don't fit? When they 'come down' off of the "experience"? Such a reliance on worldly things leads to a shallow understanding of faith, and is quickly dissipated. See the parable of the seeds as an example.
And who is harmed if the goats are entertained? Isn't it much more important that the sheep be brought into the flock than that the goats be kept away? It seems to me that some people here think they can't properly worship God if there is a marginal Christian or a non-Christian sitting next to them obsverving the process. Maybe God put that marginal Christian or non-Christian in the pew next to you for a reason. Aren't you the guys who say that everything happens for a purpose? Maybe that was a bad word to use on you, eh?