 I accidentally visited a trendy church and in today's video, I'm gonna share with you what I learned about the state of modern Christianity. Now, I know some of you that have watched the channel for a while might be asking yourself, Isaac, how did you even end up at a church like this? But basically, I just didn't do enough research. I was looking for a church to attend on a particular Sunday and I was like, okay, this church seems interesting, so I decided to go, which is pretty unlike me, but I was like, hey, what's the worst thing that could happen? All of a sudden, I pull up and it's kind of one of these cube buildings. Nothing against a cube building. I know a lot of people have churches that are just in these square warehouses. To be honest, I'm like, if you're gonna put all this effort into making a church, why not make it beautiful? Like, why just make it this kind of pragmatic, oh, okay, it's just gonna be a big box because that's what's the most efficient. I get that, but at the same time, aren't we supposed to make things that are beautiful and doesn't that glorify God too? So I know there's a little bit of a debate around that and obviously the building itself is not the church, so that's not what I'm trying to say. I'm just saying that, hey, if you have the money, why not try to make something that looks pretty awesome? It's a bummer too that all of these awesome churches have been taken over by progressive churches. I don't know if you've noticed that in your city, but you go around to all these epic old churches and so many of them have been taken over to buy LGBTQ, accepting folks that try to present themselves as a church, but it's really no church at all. Back to the story at hand, I walk into this church and immediately you're greeted by the most over-enthusiastic greeters and they look you right in the room. We're so glad you're here. You're gonna have an amazing time at this worship experience. What's your name by the way? Oh my goodness, and I get it. Hey, I'm not saying that they should be, I get it. Some people's personalities are just different, but to me that comes off as very fake. I would much rather somebody just come up across this genuine and just be like, hey, it's great that you're here, but I don't know, it's just the way that these folks are trained where all of them are just like, oh, it's amazing that you're here. That is an amazing name. Oh my goodness. And it's just like, okay, I don't know if I can have a real conversation with you. I feel like I am entering some sort of weird cult. Anyway, so you walk into the sanctuary and you guys have probably had this experience if you've been to a trendy church before too. They got all the padded chairs nice. I got padded chairs at my own church too, so no hate against that. But then you've got the atmospheric haze in the air and it's kind of smokey a little bit. Like a concert, you're sitting down and it's like, oh, it's kind of dark. You can't really see anybody. Nobody's really talking to each other. Maybe they were whispering to each other. I was like, okay, whatever. I found a seat and all of a sudden, as people kind of pile into the sanctuary, I don't even know if that's what they call it. They probably call it the auditorium. So they pile into the auditorium and all of a sudden a spotlight pops on to the main guy with the guitar and he starts playing, no, no, no, no. And he starts playing some secular song. I can't even remember what it was, but I was like, okay, this is kind of weird. What's going on here? Why are we playing this song? Did I enter the wrong building? And apparently this was just kind of like a warmup song to get everybody like loose and fresh and maybe for the non-Christians too, to make them feel comfortable. After that was passed, don't worry, we got to the worship. But what was even the worship? The worship was just a bunch of really popular worship songs that personally I wouldn't listen to because they're not about God, they're about me. Why wouldn't we sing songs that are about God? But no, no, no, we sing all about our miracle power about how much we can do, about how we're overcomers, about how we can rise up from the grave. And it's like, okay, but what about God's attributes? What about his, what he has done on the cross on our behalf? And I'm not saying there's not songs that we don't talk about ourselves. And we understand, okay, hey, the gospel has big ramifications on our own lives. But what I'm saying here is that where's the balance? Where's the talk of sin and judgment and wrath and how we've been saved from that? Instead it's just kind of all about God loves me and I can raise up and I can come out from the dead and I can overcome everything I need to. And it's like, okay, I get that for one song but it's like for every song, really? So that bummed me out a little bit because it's just like, okay, whatever. I guess we're just not singing too much about God today. Okay, but then you go over to the sermon. Okay, but before I get to the sermon is the really juicy part. I do want to say that I do appreciate some of these trendy churches, how much intentionality they put into their arts and like visual art, so video and just the presentation of everything. So conservative churches often have the message really well down, like they understand the thorough nature of the gospel and they're able to spell theology and that's really awesome. But then kind of trendy churches tend to have maybe more progressive in some ways, they have more of the method. So they're really kind of artistic in how they present things and that's really cool. The challenge is, is that all those things in how they use art should aid the message and not distract from it. That's the main problem is that they have so many of these awesome tools at their disposal and yet in using them, they distract from the message. And so one example of this is obviously like big lights that are going off. And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, am I at a rave right now? What's going on here? I did not understand that this was what I signed up for. And it's distracting from what I'm trying to do is focus on God, right? Another aspect and another thing that I'm not a big fan of and you guys can disagree with me on this but I just don't understand it is when they got camera guys walking around and they're putting the worship singers on the big screens, right? I just don't understand that, like you get their big head blown up and it's not even like, like we can hear the music, right? And it's like maybe you want to have that connection with them, I guess, but it's at the same time for me. I'm like, I just worship my eyes closed. Like I want to be connected with the other people around me, the guy next to me to be like, we're worshiping God together as opposed to like this person being put on the big screen. Like I feel like that's kind of a little bit of a glorification of them. Like they're the big performer, right? And I don't think they necessarily want that. Like if you were to say, hey, we're just going to put the words up on the screen. We're not going to put your big face. We're not going to put your big face up there on the screen. Would they take a big offense to that? I hope not. But when we talk about the sermon, this is the really juicy part. I think that sermons, trendy sermons are just so, how should I say it? They're weak sauce. They're weak sauce. When I go to church, I want some meat. I want something to chew on. I want something to convict me. I want something like a truth bomb where I get back in my car and I'm like, dang. Like and not just in the way like, I need to fix my life up or I need to be a better person, but dang like I was, I need serious grace here, but God is magnificent. Jesus is magnificent in saving me and equipping me with what I need. And like you have that, okay, it's like game time. I got to reorient my life. I got to continue to have my life conformed to Christ and trust in him. And like, okay, this is like thick. I want a thick sermon. I don't want somebody coming on and say, these are three tips for you to have, you know, a better life or, you know, five ways that you could be a better communicator. Like I can watch that TED talk at home. Another element to this is they always pull from the Old Testament as if it's just kind of a moral fairy tale, right? It's just this kind of like story that we can all learn from like David and Goliath, right? Common example, we can be like, oh, you know, you are David, you're the conqueror of your own life and those giants that are in front of you, you know, God's gonna help you overcome them and you can just do it. So whatever it is, whether it's a tough task at work, whether it's your marriage, whether it's parenting, whether it's just your dreams, you could overcome the challenges and the obstacles and you can become victorious. And everyone's like, yeah, that's awesome. I love that. That's so cool. But then you're like, wait a second, is that all what it's about? Is that it? Is that like the Old Testament? It's just a bunch of nice stories that we can tell and like it just tells us some lessons or is there something deeper to this? And I think this is the reason that there's such a disconnect between the Old and the New Testament for so many believers that are just kind of more nominal or maybe they attend one of these trendy churches. They just don't understand what the Old Testament is even about. The Israelites wandering through the desert, bunch of people doing a bunch of stuff, bunch of people saying a bunch of stuff, but then there's Jesus and we're like, yeah, Jesus time. It's time to get our groove on. But then you're like, hey, no, seriously, the Old Testament has relevance. It's, and part of the relevance is, if we take this story, for instance, David is a shadow of Christ. He was not the perfect king. He fell in many ways, sexually with Bathsheba. But ultimately when you look to Christ as the ultimate fulfillment of what this person was supposed to be or not necessarily was supposed to be, but they were just a picture or a shadow to lead us to Christ to say, oh, this is the fulfillment. This is the person that we should really put our hope in. The Old Testament is leading us to look for Jesus, right? That's the point. It's not these two disconnected stories. I think of Andy Stanley, right? Some of you might listen to Andy Stanley. I hope not, but some of you might. He said that the Old Testament was just really irrelevant in a lot of ways because we're in the New Covenant and it's just a complete lack of understanding of what's going on in the Old Testament. Do you think God is not the same yesterday, today and forever? So it's not like this is some disconnected guy that we can just let him be like, oh yeah, there's God in the Old Testament and he's a little bit mean and he did a bunch of weird stuff and we just kind of focus on what Jesus said. It's like, no, no, no. God is the same yesterday, today and forever. And yes, the civil laws that were applied to the Israelites at that time, yeah, those don't apply today, but the moral laws and the understanding of how the story of history has taken place, that is extremely relevant. But that's often one of the results of not taking the Old Testament literally. Kind of seeing it as more of a poetic story. Genesis didn't really happen in Exodus. Maybe that happened, but not really the way they told it. The Jewish writers at the time probably exaggerated some things. And so if that's the case, then maybe the Old Testament does become more expendable and you see that a lot in trendy churches. Overall, one of the things that really disappointed me was that everyone left right away after the service. I wanted to talk to people, to get their take on, hey, what did you think of the sermon? How did you become a Christian? How did you get connected to this church? But everybody left right away. One of my encouragements to you is if you're checking out a new church, if you're visiting a new church, don't leave right away. You don't just go to church, you are the church. So in that conversation, in that time where you're able to meet people with curiosity and compassion, you are being the church. Let me know your thoughts on this. I'd love to hear from you in the comments down below. 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