The Jack Nicholson Test

After the church service, a man turned to his wife and said, "This was OK, but it wasn't as good as last week." His wife asked him why he, of all people, had turned into her personal Siskel and Ebert. "Well," he said "I enjoyed last Sunday's music better, and the special music today wasn't as good. Maybe next Sunday will be better."

It's hard not to rate a church service, giving it a thumbs up or down. That's all right; we do it all the time and well we should (I John 4:1). The important thing is to evaluate it on the right, that is, a biblical basis.

A very wise and mature Christian once showed me a false criterion for judging a church service. While standing at the back door of the church after the service a couple of decades ago, a man said to me, "That was a good sermon today." That was nice to hear, but instead of going to get a notary public to notarize his statement because he had a very critical bent, I said, "Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it." The very wise and mature Christian who was standing near-by said, "He said it was a good sermon, he didn't say he enjoyed it." Decades have passed; I still remember his insight.

Paul would've said the same thing. The criterion of judgment of a "good" church service isn't whether or not people enjoyed it. (An encounter with God and His Word may not necessarily be enjoyable, but sometimes convicting and reproving. Stephen preached a monumental sermon in Acts 7, but nobody enjoyed it.) The man's remark makes us think that a church service isn't an hour of free, wholesome entertainment for Christian and non-Christian families, services that have to get more entertaining each successive Sunday.

In II Corinthians 4:2, Paul gives an "amen, brother" to my wise friend's put-down at the church door. Here Paul says, " . . . by setting forth the truth plainly, we commend ourselves . . . in the sight of God." So there it is: the biblical base on which we test a church service.

First: Did this service communicate the truth? Jack Nicholson was right when he said, "The truth? The truth? You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!" Chuck Colson discovered that Jack Nicholson was right when he preached at a large church in Southern California. In the course of the sermon, Colson pointedly said that every member in the congregation present that Sunday morning was a sinner.

After the service, the pastor had scheduled a special dinner for Colson with the church staff. But after the sermon, a man approached Colson and told him that he was there to take him to the airport.

"But," Colson explained, "I have this dinner with the staff to go to."

"No. You're going to the airport now. You're not going to the dinner. Get in the car," the man said. The pastor had cancelled Colson's dinner reservations. Nobody had ever talked to the congregation that way. Colson
would never be allowed to preach there again, and hasn't to this day.

A large church in the Midwest discovered that Jack Nicholson was right when a speaker preached the flat-out, no-holds-barred grace gospel of Jesus Christ. 1,500 attendees got up and left, never to return. They had come to be entertained, to enjoy. They weren't amused. They left.

The criterion is not, "Did you enjoy it? Was the atmosphere electric?" -- as if a church service is to rival a rock concert. If no thrill-chills of excitement played hockey on the congregational spine, the service is deemed
"not as good as the one last week."

Paul puts it on the table: first, the service must set forth the truth-"by setting forth the truth." The songs, the music, the sermon deliver the truth. (Choruses such as "Do Lord" deliver confusion, not truth and demean God.)
Secondly, the church service must set forth the truth plainly. "Did the congregation learn a great deal?" Paul would ask. "When you went to church was there a guy standing up there with an open Bible communicating the Christian message plainly and unambiguously? I didn't ask you if you enjoyed it, that's irrelevant, I want to know if it was clear." Paul would say.

That's the biblical test: when you walk out of the service: do you leave knowing that God has been at work, opening your eyes to the truth?

Dr. Mike Halsey, Pastor