Hey Look! More Stairs!

I have been informed that a Presbyterian Church (USA) in our region is planning a special sort of service this morning.



One of the children of the congregation, a 10 year old girl, will be leading the entire service, including the performance of all the liturgy and preaching the "sermon." When asked what her sermon was going to be about, she responded, "Hugs." About the time you think that Christianity has become as irrelevant and trivial as it possibly could (and voluntarily so, by its own devices) we find more stairs leading downward.



Okay, I want to make it clear that I know this little girl and her family. They are all very likeable, very decent people. You would enjoy being around them.



So please don't hear me saying something overly personal about them in this.



I just want to point out that this incident, if it indeed happens (and I see no reason why it won't,) really shows the depths to which the PC(USA) has sunk. It's not that the little girl is a bad girl: as little girls go, she's quite nice actually. But she has no business in a pulpit, no business leading the corporate worship of God's people, no business preaching.



The sad thing is that the people at this church are ALL really nice folks. You'd enjoy their company.



But if they read or hear of this post, I will likely be a villain and a bad guy for pointing out that this is outrageous evidence that they have all "lost the plot," Biblically speaking. Just because a group of genuinely nice people get together and agree to do something in church, that doesn't make it right.



My issue here is not with who the little girl is, or who her family is: I happen to like all of them, and have been on friendly terms with them. My issue is with a church agreeing that being led in worship by a 10 year old could be a good thing, in any universe. However cute and adorable her talk about hugs will be, this will be true: the Gospel of Jesus Christ will not be preached there. God will not be glorified in it. The Word of God will be denigrated in it.



And all the nice folks will rave and gush about how adorable it was. Not one of them will have any twinge of Scriptural conscience nagging at them, to the effect that maybe something wrong is happening here. Maybe the corporate worship of the Lord Almighty ought to be about something a little more profound. Those thoughts will pass through no one's mind this morning in that place.



That's the tragedy.