Church and Entertainment: Dialogue II

Entertainment: It is one thing to introduce TV's and DVD's to Sunday School curriculum or projectors and screens in a worship service with drums and guitars that's a nice start, but that's merely a beginning. Why not add slides and bouncies to your children's ministry? What child (and really adult!) doesn't love a good bouncy? You want more kids, just hang around more with me and I'll make it happen. Oh how you are missing this generation. Especially your more established people. Just look at the statistics. Numbers don't lie!
Church: I can’t deny the decline. But too serious you say? Too serious about the Greatest News in the world? Can that be possible? Perhaps you have a point though, Entertainment. This Greatest News should be characterized by celebration, liberation, and joy!
Entertainment: Joy, yes joy and celebration. Now you're really starting to hear me. That's what I'm talking about uninhibited, unencumbered joy! That's what your people need, a little heaven on earth, here and now. You place too much emphasis on the sweet-bye-and-bye and forget the joy of heaven now. Let them eat cake! Let them slide! Let them bounce! Then they will want to listen to your message! Then they will have ears to truly hear!
Church: Umm.
Entertainment: Let us enter into a long term contractual agreement and together we can use Efficiency and Technology for our advantage. Together many more will come; many more will experience joy and fun like never before. That Good News you're selling, I've heard it said, it is should be anything but boring. I am just what you need.
Church: Entertainment, you too raise some important points about joy. But I am not an organization that values customer loyalty and pleasure at any costs. Rather I value deeper values like commitment and sacrifice. You too make me question though, "Why do we take ourselves so seriously and forget the joy we can experience?" "Yet, how might fun and entertainment lead people away from the Gospel such that all they experience is a surface level understanding of commitment and sacrifice that is called for in the Gospel? After all, so many left Jesus when He called for a discipleship that was solely committed to His way of life and love?" I think I'll skip along for something more everlasting!