Theatrical Outreach Ministry

Q: The church I attend started doing broadway plays about twice a year (known as our theatrical outreach ministry). This week commences The Sound of Music. This really causes me a lot of angst! Everyone simply thinks this is just an outreach to people who ordinarily would not attend church. I struggle mightily thinking this can’t be the ministry the Apostles handed down. Am I wring, we are spending a lot of money and time on this to what seems "entertain" an audience. I have many friends who see nothing wrong with this approach. Advice from a biblical perspective? 

A: It sounds like your church is going down the path of many seeker friendly churches these days. Trying to fill the pews by appealing to the fleshly things of the lost. It is very effective in bringing in new people at the cost of keeping these folk by compromising God’s word and preaching non offensive messages that are entertaining to make them feel good about themselves. The convicting truth of God’s word is suppressed. The other problem is the pews are filling up in great numbers with more goats than sheep and thats horrible because the goats end up running the church rather than the Holy Spirit! It is to be a congregation of believers worshipping, discipling, & being busy with the Lord's work.

I share your angst. Things such as that are definitely man-centered and cater to the carnal mind. It is said that if you have drawn them by carnal means it will take carnal means to keep them coming back. 

Tjese wishy washy churches

Entertain rather than teach. 

Distract rather than preach. 

Tickle the ears, because we won’t preach the whole council of God. This theatre is only the beginning. 

All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, (2 Timothy 3:16, ESV)

2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.

3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, (2 Timothy 4:2-3, ESV)

Street ministry is proclaiming the Gospel...

Your church is following pragmatism. 

It’s pragmatism when we do everything we can that is outside of scripture to attract the goats. When we bend to this we prove that we really believe that God’s word and the gospel are not sufficient and lack power. People doing this sort of thing would deny what I just said but actions speak. It would be better to offer a class to people that want to learn more of what Christianity is, true Biblical Christianity. My church has had a class outside of the Sunday meeting called “Christianity Explored.” It was an opportunity for the members to bring someone with them from outside the church. This is how we reach the lost, not through secular theater. The problem is that it is secular and many times churches try to do what the secular world is drawn to and do it badly. This is not good either.

Paul tells Timothy, preach the word. 

This church is carnel minded looking to fill up the church with carnel people.

I think your concerns are legit. I wouldn’t care for this at all. The NT provides the model for the early church and what we should be continuing to do which is singing, praying and hearing the scripture. Even the OT suggests that we can’t approach God on our own terms. Remember the man that reached out to the stable the ark while it was being transported down the road. What He did was not prescribed by Him and he was judged for that.  

Martin Lloyd-Jones took a church that was removing the pulpit to do theatre during the week, and he bolted the pulpit to the floor to remind the congregants of the necessity of the centrality of the Word to the life of the church.

The ONLY way people are saved is when they hear the gospel.

I know a pastor and his wife who do this kind of drama plays stuff. I was just out of the military in 1999 and they were newer at my childhood church, (he was the new young pastor). I think his wife degree was in theater (no idea why any believer would go into theater tbh). But, she wrangled me 🙄 into doing a skit play at church with a guy who was going into the mil. And the pastors wife played the older her and i played the younger her. To be fair it was a play about standing before God on Judgment day when her life was over and I played the flashbacks to her youth. And i had not been taught evangelism yet. And spent lots of time memorizing those lines. 

However, i was able to get my unsaved elderly grandma into church [probably has never been tho my godly grandparents tried my whole life, and i had asked later on if she ever heard street preachers back in the 1930s which she did]. Anyway, she actually went & 🙏 got to see that play...and hear the gospel. L

She died a couple yrs later due to smoking issues tho she stopped smoking 10 yrs prior. I tried sharing a word about God in hospital but she freaked and monitors were going off and they had me leave the room till they got her settled fir the night. And I saw her the next day, and took a day or so b4 I could talk about anything out of fear she'd die or send me away. I really didnt know what to do since I never learned how to share the gospel. She gasped badly for every breathe since the monitors incident, and she died 2 weeks later (after her body couldnt keep up with gasping 247). Still not sure if she ever prayed to get right with God. I really hope she did. 

Worldly theater type stuff is a waste of our time. Couldn't we memorize Scripture, study apologetics and spend our time preaching the gospel out in the world ...and *then* bringing people who get saved into the church for discipleship? Better use of our time anddd seens to correctly follow the Scriptural pattern. 

I know they moved not long after (I moved away again) and after social media became a thing we stayed in touch a bit. We did go check out their church and his sermins seem fine. He is with Calvary chapel tho so idk how really biblical they are. He does post some good devotional like posts every week on social media so it seems he is reaching folk. 

If their business was Christian themed plays I would be fine with that. It would be like watching the movie Time Changer or Gospel of John (both produced in 2002). Purposely Christian. 

I had seen stuff on their social media page once about a drama thing, and just found out they own a theater business now but no idea if they even share the gospel with it. It doesn't appear to have Christian plays. And her 3 sons who were raised in her drama stuff are adult age now & they all do that business together on the side. 😔. I hoped to find have a good balance, but I just popped over there and all I see is typical worldly plays and it's for 6-16 year old actors. No mention of any Chritian plays. 

I just don't see worldly stuff having a place in the Christians life esp one where so much money & time is dedicated to it. And without any gospel message shared? Drawing the world to worldly entertainment can't possibly draw people to Christ. They're [the unsaved] interest is only on the worldly aspect. 

At least with Gospel Crusades, folk know they're going to hear info about Jesus. Folk going to see Christians reinact Sound of Music has no eternal value and draws the world to things where God is not part of it. 

I loved Little Women books as a child where they talked about little plays they put on for their family. But today I can only see that useful if it is always Christian themed. 

the Sight and Sound company does theatrical plays based on stories of the Bible, Ark Encounter is doing something now too. That would be fine to support, but not non Christian ones. 

I would leave that church, and tell the pastor why. I would also tell him if he wants to retain goats led by demons and lose all the sheep, then what he has left to shepherd will not be of Christ's people; because Demons are not shepherdable. Ask who he is serving, God or man.