So, I went to a place by the Los Alamitos Race Track, called Cottonwood Church during Thanksgiving break last year. This place was massive. Before it started, I was sitting in the rows of seats and I noticed that there was so many beautiful young people there. The only adults there were the "cool" parents.
When it began, it began with a Christian rock band. They were playing on a large stage and the lights were somewhat spectacular. When the music finished a man started preaching, and he was a young guy. This guy did a pretty good job relating stories of The Bible with teenagers. I was sitting there and I remembered the church I usually go to; extremely boring.
After reading the part of Postman's book about the attention span of Americans worsening, I had an epiphany. The Christian Church is making their religion more and more "televisible". The church is adjusting its practices for the new generation. Why would they do this? This brings in more revenue. The boring church I sometimes go to is extremely boring (to me) because it is based a generation that grew up on books. When I was at Cottonwood, I seemed to have more fun instead of learning about God.
I am not degrading the church for teaching Jesus' word. Believe in whatever you want. I'm all about religious freedom. However, I am degrading the church for making itself more about entertainment and fun instead of actually praising Christ.
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It is a problem that society now is more television oriented then book oriented. I agree that the attention span is deteriorating and this is due in part to the shift to a television culture. The decontexualized television promotes instance images or themes while a book requires a reader to delve deep and read more then just one word to find out a meaning. As for some modern churches trying to become more "televisible," it is not so hard a concept to understand. Seeing as Christianity is a growing religion that seeks to convert more people, it is necessary that they can appeal to the populace. Though this is giving people what they want instead of what they need, it at least gives them a chance to learn more about religion which could eventually lead to them genuinely appreciating the knowledge they can gain from it.
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