The Bible as a Prop

It is time for another round of church visitation reviews. This morning, the family and I visited First Baptist Church in Frisco. This church was remarkably like the church we visited a few weeks ago, Fellowship Frisco. But more on that later ...

On thing that struck me about the pastor at FBC Frisco was how he used the Bible as a prop. He carried it around and even thumbed through it all during the sermon, but he never read from it. He would pick in up, wander from side to side, put it down, and repeat the process. What was interesting is that he would read the Scripture passages off a tele-prompter on the back wall of the "worship center"(I always get nervous in churches that have "worship centers") while holding his Bible in his hand. There was a moment of a little humor when he was looking longingly to the back wall and the powerpoint guy was a little late.

Look, the printed book is not inherently holy. The words are inspired. I have not problem with the pastor reading Scripture passages off the PowerPoint (I also get nervous in churches with PowerPoints); but why bring the Bible to the stage? To me it cheapened it and reduced it to a prop. He did not read from his Bible but wanted everyone to know he was a Bible-believing preacher. Too bad little of the sermon actually came from it.

FBC Frisco was one of the stranger churches architecturally I had been in. It was a wide rectangle. From the front of the stage to the back door was probably 15 rows of seats, but the church was probably five times its depth in width. Other than that, it was exactly like Fellowship Frisco. Kind of reminds you of all those little Baptist churches in the country that have similar architecture, signs and Sunday School rooms.

These churches have worship centers that are auditoriums. They're built specifically for concerts. The walls have no windows but acoustic panels. The stages have room for a full band, and both churches had a drummer in a box. That slayed me ... the drummer was in a little transparent cage at the back of the stage. I wish there had been a "please do not feed the drummer" sign. Each church had its requisite candles from the Willow Creek catalog and - I kid you not - the exact same dominating A/V production area with about 5-10 "ministers of media" running cameras, power points, video, etc. Believe it or not, both churches had the exact same red-lettered digital clock to let the performers know how long they had. FBC Frisco has cameras, and it showed either the pastor preacher or crowd shots on three screens above the stage. What was funny is the church is not very big - maybe seats 500. Each church had the same chairs, the same flat-screen TVs broadcasting the show in the lobby of the "worship center." And, these two and the church of the plagiarizing preacher all had the same Community Coffee center (I love Community Coffee).

I am interested in how architecture defines our worship. These churches are built not really for worship or prayer or contemplation or repentance or awe but for entertainment. The question that went through my mind more than once - where do people get married these days? I could not imagine getting married in one of these dark, souless auditoriums.