3 Reasons Holiday WOW Doesn't Work For Churches

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There are a lot of churches that try to create a wow experience at the holidays. Church Relevance highlight four of them a few weeks ago. Loads of time, energy, money, and care go into pulling off these WOW experiences. Even though I have a great time at these services I don't think they work for what we intend them to do. Let me try to explain why.

The goal of creating this WOW experience, according to Church Relevance, is:

Usually, the goal is to create a “Wow!” experience for the people who rarely come to church as well as those who have never been. And hopefully, this “Wow!” experience will get them to come back and start attending more regularly.

Worship Evangelism Doesn't Work

Not to long ago Sally Morgenthaler, a leader and pioneer in the worship evangelism community, took down her site on worship evangelism and came out saying that it didn't work. This wow experience we are trying to create at the holidays is a form of worship evangelism. According to the research Sally points to all this wow experience is doing is getting Christians from one church to switch to another. It isn't reaching out to the unchurched.

Not Meeting The Need

These WOW worship services are not meeting the needs of the people. When people come up with their list of concerns, like this one from Church Relevance, they aren't looking for more WOW in their life. Look at all the WOW around us. Go see a new hot movie and look at the nice theaters. Go to the big concerts. Just look around and you will see that the world is trying to WOW people.

Yet, where in the bible does God say to WOW people with stuff? Where in the bible does God say to put together a sweet show for a holiday to attract people? Where did Jesus or the apostles lead by example in doing this?

Jesus taught, cared for, loved, and lived in community with people. His life and work didn't center around an hour of worship a week. They centered on Gods people. So, why do we try to compete with the world on their terms and in their way?

The Right Reasons

A tough question to ask anyone is their motivation for doing something. If some is coming to church for a WOW experience from the service are they there for the right reasons? If they are there for the WOW are they there for the mission that's about serving others? The WOW is self serving. Are they there to grow in faith? Are they there to worship? Or, are they there for a show?

I know a number of people who switched from one church to another for the WOW factor. I have yet to have one tell me a good reason. For every one of them is was for the show factor. That may not be you. That may not be someone you know. But, for an overwhelming number of people they aren't doing it for a good reason.

Holidays are definitely a celebration. Christmas and Easter should be a time of celebration. But, it may be time to re-think what we are trying to do. To re-think how the plan meets the goals meets Gods way of doing things.

Good points

These are very good points. I've been struggling with this issue for a long time. On the one hand, we have technology available to us and the ability to do things well, so why not do things just as well as the world does....on the other hand, God's Word is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. With proper teaching and handling of the Word of Truth, powerful things happen even without "show." Hondurans worshiping on a dirt floor or Chinese worshiping in secret afraid for their life have more "wow" than any full-scale production I think.

Another danger is that if you're trying to bring unchurched people in with the wow factor, but you only suceeded at wowing during the one event but don't wow every other time the visitor comes back, you've pulled a bait and switch and that's no good either. Good thoughts and thanks for the post!

Tough Call

Thanks for the thoughts in this post Matt. It is certainly a subject that the church needs to keep in front of. Keeping a close eye on motivation behind all your events and actions is a proper thing to do. It can be easy to fall into the trap of following the Pied Piper and doing something just because it seems hip or cool and not because it is actually serving God.

God is also a creative being - the most creative in fact. All of the arts in its various forms (sculpture, drama, painting, lighting, music) come from Him. They are His gifts to us. Should we proclaim some more holy than others? Is the pipe organ holier than the electric guitar? Is adding lights and cameras and quality editing to a video shot more secular than a painting?

Technology is beginning to make possible worship experiences that in the past could not even be considered. I see that as a relfection of the infinate God that likes to be praised and worshipped in many ways. The Sunday worship experience may be "outreach" but we cannot forget that it is also about worship the God who created us. We cannot ever judge the merits of a worship experience soloy by how many new people came that day and whether they came from another church or off the street.

Motivies need to be kept in check, I agree 100%. But we must be careful about claiming one type of experience more legitamate than another based on the "wow" factor. I think when God created the first woman, Eve, and showed her to Adam, Adam was very "wowed". Or when he saw all the animals that God created and gave him to name. Talk about a 'wow' experience! I think God is the god of 'wow' and it is a testimony to just how majestic and creative He is.

I don't thik we would question Michelango and the 'wow' factor he gave the Sistine Chapel?

Art in Corporate Worship?

I hear a lot about art and technology in corporate worship, which is what we are talking about in this case. Can anyone tell me where in the bible God says we should have art like this in our corporate worship? I'm not saying it's not there. But, it seems to be something people fight so hard to justify. Yet, I've never had anyone give me biblical support for it in corporate worship.

Now, I think motivation is the key. Some churches have the WOW all the time. But, the intent as listed in the article and the 10 some churches I've been to is to WOW them at a special occasion to suck them in. This is just plain a bad idea. And, the people I know who switch to churches that have some WOW all the time consistently are doing it for the wrong reasons. So, I think that needs to be regularly addressed by those churches. Every church has dangers in what they do. This is one of them for this style church that needs to be actively dealt with.

According to Barna and others who study people and the church, it has become a mirror of the world is lifestyle and way of doing things. These days in western culture we have to be very careful with what we do. And, some of what we should do will go against the way the world does things.

As for Sunday service being outreach... I think that ship is sailing. I've never seen justification in the bible to do outreach that way and the experts of today are saying that outreach worship doesn't work.

Here's a question... did Michelango paint the Sistine Chapel during corporate worship? That would be more equivalent to what we are talking about today.

I agree...but don't confuse the arts with a big show.

Although I would disagree that the Bible doesn't advocate the arts in worship (corporate or otherwise) I do agree that WOW is a waste of time, money and effort. I would say just be careful no to entagle the arts (in general) with an overblown "show" in worship.

I think it's fairly obvious if people understood who Jesus was that he was anti-WOW. If anyone was pro-WOW in the Bible, it was the Pharisees who made a show out of everyting they did. Jesus came to humble people in humble and quiet ways. The Jews expected him to be a WOW king and conqueror...but he came as a humble Lamb.

Adiophora

Art, technology, ceremony, and other such things are all adiophora ... that is, it's an area where Scripture doesn't say much of anything. So, the challenge here is to handle these things in a way that honors what Scripture does say.

So, in this case, is the use of technology, ceremony, or art pointing people to the Gospel of Jesus? If it is, great, if not, drop it.

That becomes the challenge when we go specifically for the WOW factor, more often than not, people walk away impressed with us, not with Jesus.

My guiding principle on this is, "If people notice the tech, or the art itself (vs. the message), or the ceremony, then it needs to be toned down and placed in the service of the Gospel."

Well put.

Nice. That's what I was trying to say below but while I was busy blabbing you put it much more eloquently.

Do we need Biblical support?

I'm torn to pieces about where I stand on this issue. I see the points you're trying to make and I agree with a lot of it. But I hesitate to dismiss the Sunday service as outreach. I don't think every church is called to be used the same way, so programming might change depending on what kind of church you are and what you feel your mission is to your community. Maybe that's an easy way out.

You mentioned that you've never seen biblical support for art used in corporate worship. Whether art should be used in all its forms or not is another discussion but I'm curious to know if we really need biblical support for everything that we do? Surely some extra-biblical tradition has crept into our liturgies. Some would even argue that preaching falls into this category. Perhaps we should judge things by their fruit. If we do that, I don't think we can say WOW just does not work. It may not have worked out for some churches but it seems to for others.

How do you do outreach?

My thoughts on the whole topic when and where we do outreach were thrown into a tailspin a few years ago by my friends who know greek. If we go to Matthew 28 where the great commission is we are told to outreach. But, and I'm told by a number of people that this is apparent in the greek, we are told to make disciples by teaching and baptizing.

Now, greek scholars can argue the point about this and I'm not one so I'll repeat what I've herd them say. We really need to be careful not to try and make disciples our way and make them Gods way. God knows best.

A few years ago I was invited to another church by some friends so I went. This was one of those WOW style services targeting outreach. When I was there I ran into a bunch of people I've known over the years (some going back to middle school). Over the few times I attended a lot of these people talked to be about why they were there. I never once herd the right reasons. I never herd about being missional. I never herd about a relationship with God. The WOW had gotten in the way. It was about the amazing band. They are pretty good. It was about the preachers stage presence. But, they forgot the message before they were out the doors.

When I walked away from there I wondered if the preacher, staff, and volunteers had seen what I had. Their message and intent was one thing. What the people walked away with was something else. Doing it the worlds way still had the worlds message in peoples minds.

On the flip side I've herd of some churches that do the outreach worship and it works. From what I've read they are few, far between, and not the ones you'd pick off a list. This is statistically speaking anyway. The engineer in me not only wants to get the requirements right (from God) but wants to test our implementations to see how effective they are. According to the experts, we aren't effective with outreach worship.

Entertainment or Worship

I think motivation is one of the keys here, but also the purpose of the service. I wrote about this recently with respect to youth groups. It seems that a lot of youth groups and churches think the goal is to pack the house with a lot of bodies, but sacrifice content in favor of style to do it. I am fine with having the arts as part of worship, as long as it doesn't detract from the main purpose - training disciples as Matt says below.

It seems that many churches and youth groups focus on entertainment with a little devotional to "sanctify" the event. Then they wonder why youth quit being part of the church when they go to college, and why the people don't know how to feed themselves.

So, my thought is that wow can be okay, if it isn't a gimmick for a special event, and if it doesn't detract from the main goal.

Agreed

John - I agree that WOW can be ok if it's not for entertainment or a gimmick. Sadly, many of the leaders in the church are saying that's exactly why they do it. And, many others are just following these leaders.

Consumer to Music

I think it's important to call the WOW factor what it is ... an appeal to consumerism. It's the exact same thing that the rest of the corporate world does to grab customers who either have no loyalty or loyalty to competitor.

The problem is, if you've brought someone in on WOW, then you need to maintain WOW or else you're no longer meeting their consumer need. Something about this is fundamentally opposed to Christianity and the idea of servanthood.

Am I the only one who sees a logical breakdown when we say, "Let's nurture consumerism in people so we can break it and turn them into servants."

SAP episode

Please do a SAP episode/series on this. This is a HUGE issue for most American churches.

As a church tech team leader, my team and I strive for excellence in our area of ministry, but when does that turn into "WOW"?

Add That to the List

I'll add that to the list. Thanks for the suggestion.