The late A.W. Tozer entitled one of his fine booklets, “Worship - The Missing Jewel of the Evangelical Church.” Written over thirty years ago, Dr. Tozer rightly diagnosed the trends of his own day as alarming at the least and ominous for the future of the church in North America. He could scarcely have envisioned, however, just how far the church of the late twentieth century would continue to depart from the “jewel” of true biblical worship as mandated in God’s Holy Word. Today, therapeutic techniques, marketing strategies and the beat of the entertainment world often have far more to say about how the church worships, how it functions and what it wants and what it offers, than does the Word of God.

For instance, in recent years there has been a sudden and quite widespread introduction of dance, drama, mime, and rock music into worship and evangelism by charismatics and evangelicals. In many evangelical churches it is now quite common to find ‘sketches’ slotted into a service of worship, and in some churches stages are being erected alongside pulpits. The Gospel is being mixed with entertainment. And this is happening in “Reformed” Churches to an alarming degree.