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For me it was kinda sad to read the article. Its great that younger people are attending these churches BUT at what cost??? Is the gospel being watered down? Are they being taught to live for Christ? Are they being discipled?

In one part of the article one of the pastors said “The role of the church is to see a need and meet a need” No its not!! The role FIRST AND FOREMOST is to Glorify and Worship God and to lift Him up!!! Then the “needs” will be met when one first gets the vertical relationship correct and then the “horizontal” relationships will be then met!!! In the article it seems that all that is being considered is that MAN is “glorified and worshiped” and trying to be relevant to man FIRST and not being relevant to God FIRST. Here in this scenario mans view of God is SMALL and the view of man is BIG.

The second point is that they speak of attention spans being “short” so they “rush thru the service and try to keep it to an hour. That is SHALLOW “christianity”!!!! Again man is put FIRST and not God!!! How can learning be accomplished leading to effective discipleship? How can a difference be made in the lives of the people if they meet only an hour a week and know the service is being “rushed thru” to accommodate man?? We wonder why the church has no influence as it once did. Its because we are raising shallow believers who couldnt articulate the core doctrines of the faith or even know what the gospel is!!!

Below are links to some interviews from a bible study called Behold Your God: Rethinking God Biblically. Its a great study i highly recommend.

https://vimeo.com/130918095 Interview with Conrad Mbewe on pragmatism in the church. One key point, of many, is that UNLESS one FIRST wants to glorify God BEFORE MAN the church isn’t following what God wants them to do.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9Bn3mt4fDk Paul Washer on pragmatism and the need to cut ourselves off from the arm of flesh, which is pragmatism. We do not see much of God because we don’t preach the gospel.

https://vimeo.com/127725807 Paul Washer warning church leaders on the evils of pragmatism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycgKmYmTkSE John Snyder on pragmatism and planting churches in modern society. (there is a plug for the Behold your God Study but it returns back to the meat of the argument on pragmatism)

I agree to a degree... short response: "How can a difference be made in the lives of the people if they meet only an hour a week? Are they being taught to live for Christ? Are they being discipled?" I can't speak for each church in the article, but most churches like this promote small groups that meet during the week and cover other teaching and support each other. "“The role of the church is to see a need and meet a need” No its not!! The role FIRST AND FOREMOST is to Glorify and Worship God and to lift Him up!!!" I agree and disagree. The church exists to glorify God by leading people to Christ and creating fully developed followers of Christ. For that to happen, we meet needs & share the Gospel & teach to mature believers. I've seen it in my own church, where we baptize those who have come to Christ every quarter. Typically, there are far more than 100 new believers being baptized each quarter. It is very moving to hear their testimonies. Ages range from kids to those in their 80s. It includes a majority of millenials who are tatooed, pierced, etc. who were far from God, but were invited to come to church and consequently came to faith in Christ - after a time. They typically did not come to Christ the very first time they entered the door. They were far from God and living in every kind of sin imaginable. We recently passed 15,000 members over 9 campuses now.