I’m part of a church that has modern worship music, drama during the service, film clips, bible verses on overheads, and the like. The gospel message of Christ on the cross, his sacrifice for our sins, is repeated at every single service. Sometimes people make the mistake of thinking that traditional forms only can give the gospel message. That is not true. It’s ironic that this sort of idea floats out on the internet where conservatives post their youtube videos and blogs bring down the old media and make fools of them . . . the form of the message is not the content.
I never said that.
What warren does is make stylistic changes without regard for who it bothers — apparently the young folk are more important than the old folk.
Then he changes things of more substance, and bills those as similar changes which you wouldn’t oppose unless you were ‘selfish’ and ‘fat and lazy want to be spoonfed’ Christians. It’s the classic bait and switch.
You need to read Bob DeWaay’s book. In fact, he has a praise group that sings for their services too, and they sing some contemporary stuff and some hymns.
Style is not the issue. What is at issue is the faulty logic and resultant doctrinal errors bordering on heresy.
“It is my deep conviction that anybody can be won to Christ if you discover the key to his or her heart. . . . It may take some time to identify it. But the most likely place to start is with the person’s felt needs.” — Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995) 219.
This is heresy and puts Rick, or US in the place of the Holy Spirit. If you build a church on this premise, you are building a church where the Spirit is quenched because you place mankind in his place.