"Kids in their late 20s to midteens now, they really crave intimacy and authenticity."

The article, itself, was well written and whether it intends to or not exposes the anthropocentrism instead of the Christocentrism of much of the Evangelical world. It is quite unfortunate.

This is just another fad. When introducing ‘bands’ into worship they enter into entertainment, but the world knows and loves entertainment. The world knows the deference between some wanna be’s and the real thing.

There was a ‘church band’ in the place I went to worship after I was saved. They played Sunday in church having played Saturday in a club. They wanted to be famous and thought they stood a better chance in the world. When they were stopped playing music in church because the ‘pastor’ had set up a band, they all stopped going to church.

I was looking for something on YouTube and stumbled over this professional band who had come out of retirement. When I hear this kind of performance and consider the appalling lack of talent in these ‘church bands’ I wonder who these people are kidding when they say ‘for the glory of the Almighty’.

All of this stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of what the church is- it is a body of believers, it is The Bride. It is not supposed to be a charitable organization for the purposes of community service.

This is my favorite quote from the article:

“We felt like Jesus didn’t hang out at the synagogue, he hung out at wells,” he said. “Coffeehouses are postmodern wells. Let’s not wait for people to come to us, let’s go to them.”

How quaint … I must wholeheartedly agree with Alex - secular culture is increasingly infecting our view of how “church” should be done.

The fact is that this new wave of “church” has no Biblical basis whatsoever. Have these “Pastors” read the Pastoral Epistles? The Lord has called Christians to worship as body of believers under the leadership of qualified men with deacons to support him (1 Tim 3:1-13).

It doesn’t matter where the church meets; it could be a rented building, a purchased building, an elementary school, a member’s house or a movie theater. What matters is that the church is a structured organization of believers who meet for worship under the care of a Scripturally qualified overseer. I do sympathize with the idea of moving past massive buildings and the debt which frequently goes along with it. My issue is not where worship is done, but how it is conducted.

There appears to be a marked lack of separation inherent in this new wave of “churches” from the article. This is not surprising, but it is saddening. God wants His people to be holy because He is holy (Lev 19:2; 1 Pet 1:16). These new “churches” appear to have no idea what this means. You can have a church in a movie theater if you are worshipping according to Scriptural principles. I don’t see this being done.

This is a sad article. Man-centered worship has a stranglehold on contemporary society. How sad that this is what “Christianity” is to lost people.