The church is a place for everyone to go and seek salvation and peace. It is the responsibility of each church to maintain morals and values when speaking to their existing and new members. Churches should work together in harmony to spread the word of God. Unfortunately, some churches have become competitive and greedy when it comes to recruiting new members.
This situation has come to the surprise of many churches throughout South Florida and beyond. It is understandable that a church can only exist if it has members that attend regularly. However, it doesn’t mean that false promises and over the top presentations should become part of the service.
The word of God is sacred and should be shared among everyone who wants to listen. It doesn’t matter which church the person attends. Creating competition between churches has evolved into cut-throat actions. Some churches have become so desperate to attract and keep new members they have gone to extremes with their service. Adding unnecessary drama, loud music and concert like venues are changing the way people choose a church to attend.
For example, a family with children might search for a church that will capture the attention of their teenager. A church with loud music in a rock concert like setting would suit the teenager. However, is the word of God really getting through to the teen?
This new age extreme way of attracting new members has become a competition of who can do it bigger and better. Recently, a devout Christian couple was looking for a new place to worship. They heard amazing things about a specific church. On Sunday they arrived at church early to introduce themselves to other members and get to know the people better. Unfortunately, they were met with mediocre greetings and members that were uninterested in hearing their testimony. This made the couple feel discouraged. But they powered through and looked forward to the service and hearing the word of God.
The couple was astonished when the service started with loud music, smoke machines and more. They were barely able to understand the lyrics and soon realized the sermon was the loud music. They left disappointed and never returned again.
It is important and essential to find a happy medium of providing members with a pleasant experience as well as presenting the word of God in a respectful way. The competition between churches that are trying to be bigger and better than the next needs to be re-evaluated. There has to be a respectful way to meet the needs of members and attract new members in a positive way.
