Itching Ears

For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3).

Listening to Paul speaking here, almost two thousand years ago, one might presuppose that he was speaking about those modern churches which have substituted entertainment for sound teaching of Biblical principles. The hunger for "an experience" has replaced the hunger for "an encounter". As more churches run ever more slick programmes to satiate the appetite of their audience (formerly known as congregations), the relevancy of the traditional church has been questioned.

A recent Gallup survey reveals that Americans' membership in churches has continued to decline dropping below 50% for the first time in Gallup's eight-decade trend. U.S. church membership was 73% when Gallup first measured it in 1937 and remained near 70% for the next six decades, before beginning a steady decline around the turn of the 21st century. To address this decline some churches in a desperate quest for relevance have designed programmes to reach out to media and tech savvy Millennials (who are the target group). These "weekly events" provide a "rock concert" experience with mood lighting, loud music, smoky special effects and image-conscious preachers.

Church branding has also become a trend with fancy logos and slick media presentations advertising the experience. The problem is that churches can never match the entertainment value and quality of a "live" pop or rock concert and increasingly look like pale imitations of the real thing. The church is supposed to represent Christ and He is the only brand that it should market - its real value lies in providing an environment for the transformation of lives through the preaching and teaching of the unadulterated word of God - without compromise.

However the replacement of a life transforming agenda with a more glamorous programme has achieved the opposite of what it was established to do. In a bid to appeal to a more liberal group of "believers" who believe that "Grace" accommodates a lifestyle of sin, these prosperity-seeking weeds have corrupted the harvest fields. Easter provides the perfect opportunity for reflection on the disturbing trend of decline in church attendance. It's time to stop appealing to the liberal theology of those with itching ears and to risk unpopularity for the sake of relevance.