Entertainment Vs Discipleship - What should be the center of a church?

With all the power of the world that is trying to destroy the Christian faith, what should the church offer for its believers to strengthen their faith?

I think that though people may come to Christ though various means, the ultimate goal of churches should be discipling people with strong Christian values and the Christian truth. Churches that promote entertainment and promote liberal Christianity should strictly consider promoting discipleship programmes that can build people not just have some feeling in them. People should not just be informed about the Christian faith but should be educated. The lives of people should be influenced by God’s word.

Questions to ask -
a) Am I a disciple?
b) What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus?
c) Is being a disciple important than our own lives?
d) What are some things that stop me from being a disciple?

Welcome to post your comments -

100% agreed. However, I would add that people are not “informed about the Christian faith” unless by that you mean that they are merely told “there is such a thing as Christian faith and because you’re here, you have it.”. Because that is all the people are getting in entertainment-driven churches.

There are two things the leader or pastor of a protestant church should be doing:
1.) Teaching directly from the Bible
2.) Being a responsible under-shepherd (Christ is our Shepherd, so a pastor is Christ’s under-shepherd) - which is to say, paying attention to the congregation he teaches the Bible to, and correcting, exhorting, etc. them individually as needed, and if the church is large enough, he should make sure there is a group of elders that can help with that role.

Other than that, there is nothing that a pastor or teacher ought to be doing if he wants to be called a Christian. Of course, everyone in church can participate in singing hymns and songs of praise, baptism and The Lord’s Supper (after having seriously examined themselves first). But the Pastor’s main function is to feed the sheep with God’s Word and to shepherd them.

Something I have noticed is that apparently some people find the simplicity of God’s Word and His Way of Salvation to be just “too simple” for them to swallow.

Well, to quote the Bible in answer to this:

1 Corinthians 1:27 New International Version (NIV)
27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

Also, please consider this verse when throwing the word “disciple” around:

Matthew 10:24 (NASB) “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a slave above his master.”