"Good Show, Reverend"

"Good Show, Reverend"

A few years back a visitor to a morning worship service, when shaking hands with me following the service, said, "Good show, Reverend."  Usually the comments I heard were more general, like, "nice service," "wonderful music today," "I appreciated that choir special," or "good sermon, pastor."  My favorite comment was when a man said, "Pastor, I felt today like it was just you and me in a room, and you were talking directly to me."  I felt then that communication had taken place.

   
The statement, "Good show, Reverend," stunned me, however.  It could have been that he had lived in England and learned to express his pleasure with those words, "good show," but I did not detect any British accent.  The connotation that I placed on the comment was that he judged the service by its entertainment value.
    
This leads me to express my concern and conviction that a worship service is not for entertainment.  Certainly worship should not bore one to death, but neither should it be a hand-clapping, foot-stomping show-time where people are judged by their performance.
     
In the services I conducted I always wanted to have spirited singing and a fast-moving order of service, but hopefully and prayerfully one that brought people face to face with the claims of Christ. My prayer always was that at the end of the service people would not feel that they had watched a show, but had participated in showing the wonderful things of God. Then the folks leave worship not entertained, but encouraged, strengthened, blessed, or perhaps convicted.