Disciples of Entertainment

One of the things I regret seeing in the Christian tradition is the dumbing down of children’s/youth groups, reducing them to mere entertainment instead of focusing on making disciples of Christ. Though we can certainly use an entertaining approach at times, we have turned it into a mandatory approach that supplants all else. 

If we were to superimpose such an approach on any of the scenarios described in the Bible, they would seem ludicrous. Can you imagine Jesus looking up at Zacchaeus in the tree and belting out a stand-up one liner about short people to make everyone laugh? Or Paul and Silas chained up in jail with their whipped backs bleeding and singing “Jesus is the rock and he rolls my blues away, bop-shoo-bop-shoo-bop, wow”?  

I remember many times in junior high or high school where our youth groups did silly things that had no tie-in whatsoever to spiritual matters. I remember singing “Whose side are you zodding on? Zodding on the Lord’s side. Izod Izod...” while forming our hands into an alligator mouth over the left side of our chests in mimicry of the Izod clothing icon, or singing “I’ve got peace like a river in my soul,” pointing to the soles of our shoes on the word “soul”.

Such silliness distracted from our raison d'être. It communicated that entertainment and silliness was always more important than God’s principles. The fruit of this approach is pretty obvious when we ask ourselves this question: if there is ever a conflict for modern Christians between spiritual principles and convenience/comfort, which will a believer choose? Will they do the hard work of loving one another through tough and uncomfortable situations? Instead of becoming the church to one another, it’s so much easier to become a spiritual consumer of Christian entertainment delivered by paid professionals for an hour every week. It’s as if Christianity has unwittingly made us disciples of silly entertainment instead of disciples of Jesus and his teachings.

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