The Bandwagon
Time to get on board the bandwagon and go to church. Everybody’s goin’! Grab your designer Bible case and put on your western cut jeans and silk scarf or your coat and tie, depending on which church you enjoy. Make sure you have the approved version of the Bible and get ready to sing the songs that entertain your soul. Make sure to arrive on time, lest you get “that look” and don’t bother to volunteer your precious time, just put some money in the plate. Bring your kids to participate in the programs that they enjoy and train them at a young age to follow their friends. Can’t make it Sunday? No worries – watch the service at home so you can check that box off for the week. While you’re checking boxes, don’t forget to click on that big fat “donate” button on the church website! It’s the 21st century and easier now than ever before to jump on the bandwagon. Sadly, many churches in America have chosen the bandwagon as their ministry model. Whatever it takes to make church convenient and whatever church can do to make saints feel comfortable.
Now, to be honest, this is a biblical philosophy of ministry. Remember when Aaron made the golden calf to please the people? Remember in the time of judges when everyone in Israel turned away from the true God to do “what was right in his own eyes” (Judges 21:25)? Remember all those kings of Israel who led the people to foreign gods? Remember when Jesus came and the sheep without a shepherd flocked to Him – if only for a little while— looking for the excitement of one more miracle? Look ahead to a time when all the people of the world will worship “the beast.” All of these are in the Bible and all are so very similar to our contemporary model of the convenient and comfortable church.
So, what can we do to end this ministry of the bandwagon? Do we need to drive people away? Do we need to make church miserable and hard? Do we need to declare fasts and rub ashes on our heads? Those, too, have been done, but in vain. The cure for the bandwagon is not in us and what we do. Our cure is in God. Throughout the Bible, whenever God’s people went astray, prophets came with one purpose, to turn the people back to God. And what did these prophets proclaim? Nothing other than the word of God. And when they preached the word of God, what did the bandwagon seeking people do? They killed the prophets and stoned those sent by God (Matt 23:37). They even crucified their Messiah, Jesus.
Don’t jump on the bandwagon. There is a better way. Preach God’s word, hear God’s word,
and come to Jesus.
“Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth and be turned aside to fables. But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” 2 Timothy 4:2-5