This Little Church Went to Market: The Church in the Age of Entertainment

by Gary E. Gilley

Book Overview

With many evangelical churches being subscribed to pragmatic rather than scriptural patterns for worship this book calls for the Church to return to its scriptural roots. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0852345968
• ISBN13: 9780852345962
• Release Date: July 2005
• Publisher: EP BOOKS
• Length: 142 Pages
• Weight: 0.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

A MUST READ IF YOU ARE SERIOUS ABOUT WORSHIP

Gary Gilley is a student of worship and the direction, or mis-direction, that many churches are taking today. If you are serious about worship and are not afraid to take a Biblical look at the current trends of the "contemporary" church, then you should definitly read this book. Be ready for an eye opening experience.

This Little Church Went to Market

This book excellently portrays how the Gospel is being changed into a "different gospel" in order to be appealing. Clearly, a great shift is happening in churches today toward a man-centered philosophy. Easy read for the serious Believer.

This Little Church Went to Market

One of the best complete discussions of the Contemporary Church movement a la Rick Warren/Saddleback, and Bill Hybels/Willow Creek.

A Prophetic and Passionate Call To the Church

I have greatly enjoyed reading Gary Gilley's book THIS LITTLE CHURCH WENT TO MARKET: IS THE MODERN CHURCH REACHING OUT OR SELLING OUT?. Having been a big reader of Charles Spugeon and John MacArthur, I have seen the problems with the modern church through their writing for quite some time and how we need to return to the authority of the Bible alone and not the fads of our time. This book by Gilley is another cry in their tradition. In this book Gilley takes on the entire Church Growth movement of Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, C. Peter Wagner, and George Barna. He does a graceful job of presenting both the weaknesses and the postives that Christians can learn from these men. Gilley doesn't question their hearts or motives but rather he simply calls the Church to base everything on the teachings of Scripture and nothing else. The book reveals who modern evangelicals are moving away from sound doctrine (1 Timothy 4:16; Titus 2:1) for experience or for a more pragmatic approach to ministry and life. He doesn't just pick fights with the Church Growth "experts" but he goes directly to the Scriptures to show what God has to say about the issues at hand. His book is filled with the extensive end notes with many coming directly from quotes of popular Church Growth authors and teachers. I highly recommend this book for all disciples of Jesus (John 8:31-32). I believe Gilley is a voice crying in the wilderness. We need more men willing to stand up for truth in the midst of our intolerant age of tolerance.

He names names!

From the Blog of Paul Apple [...] Gary Gilley does what many would consider to be very un-Christian: He names names and points the finger at those who are leading the market-driven church growth movement of today. But how else can one contend for the faith and warn the naïve and the undiscerning except by calling a spade a spade? He takes issue specifically with Bill Hybels and Rick Warren. The sad thing is that many pastors are uncritically embracing some of their methodology and philosophy of ministry without understanding its foundation and its ultimate effect on Christianity. The most successful arm of the evangelical church in recent years, in terms of growth, money and prestige, has been the market-driven (seeker-sensitive, new paradigm, user-friendly) church. Because of this success these churches are being mimicked all over the country, and indeed, the world. But is this church fully dressed? Is she outfitted in the biblically prescribed robes of evangelism, edification, worship and instruction? Or, is she wrapped in rags composed of empty human philosophy stitched together with bits and pieces of truth? If the latter is true, why have so few seemed to notice? It is the intent of this book to attempt to answer some of these questions. Gary is careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water when examining the modern market-driven church growth movement. The leaders are reacting against some common weaknesses in evangelical church culture ... but the problem is that they swing the pendulum too far the other direction in seeking correction: We will say up front that the church growth experts have gotten some things right. They are calling for excellence rather than shabbiness; aggressive evangelism rather than indifference; direction and purpose rather than aimlessness; innovation and creativity rather than traditionalism at any cost; dedication rather than slothfulness. In all of these things we commend them. On the other hand, . . . they have over corrected in important areas. These areas demand careful probing and biblical realignment. (p.16) Here are some specific tests you could apply to pastoral leadership to determine where they stand in this pivotal paradigm transition: - Are the church services geared towards drawing in the unsaved, unchurched or towards the edification of the believers to equip them to do the work of the ministry? - Does the church place a high priority on the communication of doctrine and the authoritative proclamation of the Word of God or is doctrine looked down on as outdated and out of touch and experience made the ultimate goal - without requiring biblical roots to that experience? - Are the leaders more inclined to turn to demographic studies and sophisticated marketing techniques to fill the pews than to the model of the early church in the Book of Acts and the Epistles? - Are the leaders enamored with the "eight characteristics of growing churches" as developed by Christian A. Schwar