Beyond Easy Listening Christianity
Easy listening music is defined as: “a type of music that is not complicated, serious, or difficult.” That sounds like easy listening Christianity.
Easy listening
In a congregation
To a Sunday talk
Seldom brings genuine
Heart transformation,
But personal revelation
From the risen Jesus
Will directly change
Your inner situation.
Open your heart to hear
Jesus the Christ today!
Easy listening sermons seldom pop anybody’s bubble, rock anyone’s boat, or save someone’s soul. They just keep the same ole rhythm and blues rolling along. They say soothing sentences that won’t shake up a lost soul.
Easy listening sermons are quiet, agreeable talks that don’t require much of your attention. They sift through the Gospel and soften it so they can shelter people from the life-shaking sound of God’s voice.
Easy listening Christianity is sweet and soothing and never intruding. It’s polished and packaged to be palatable for passive people. Easy listening Christianity is an undemanding backdrop and mood setter that makes people feel comfortable about their spiritual condition without feeling a need to do anything about it.
Easy listening should be a genre of music, not a format for church. When Christianity embraced the easy listening Sunday morning format it shifted from being Spirit-led to public opinion driven.
For church to be instrumental in changing people’s hearts, it needs to be much more than a weekly, easy listening sermon. It needs to be raw, real, and Spirit-led! If we aren’t willing to listen to and be led by God’s Spirit when we gather with brothers and sisters in Christ, we won’t have the courage to listen and be led by the Spirit when we are around anybody else.
Most Sunday morning church sounds are easy listening. There’s rarely an electrifying bridge to effectively rock and roll a stoney heart. (Some people even make a playlist of their favorite easy listening sermons.)
The Bible isn’t easy listening. That’s why many people avoid reading it or hearing what it says. If you want people to hear the Gospel, you must first capture their attention. The Bible way is not to bore people with the Gospel but to transform them with it! Easy listening Christianity doesn’t do that.
Do you want more than easy listening? Try this: When you are truly in Christ, you remain in the world but are no longer of the world. In Him you live and move and have your being. Although you reside physically in the world, you are called to abide in the living Jesus and in every issue to be always on His side, not the popular side, even when it makes people decide to reject you. To be in Christ is to be an outsider–a stranger and pilgrim who abstains from the spirit of the world–a citizen of the kingdom of God, seated with Jesus in heavenly places.
Words that say
All is well
Clear the way
That leads to?
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