The Rise (and Fall) of the Secular Church: Observations of the Church Since Whatever Happened to Worship?: A Call toTrue Worship Sermon Collections by A. W. Tozer, 1985

Over a half century ago, A. W. Tozer warned about the invasion of secularism into the church. 

What has happened to the church and its worship experience since he started in 1962: "Heresy of method may be as deadly as the heresy of message”?

Many Christians simply accept the form of worship in their churches as it is — after all, if it's church it's right, isn't it? 

The fact that secular values, styles, and expressions exist in the worship of many evangelical churches today shows the insidious, yet discernible creep of secularism into the worship experience.

Change is inevitable. No one is naive enough to believe that the church today must be the same as the church of the first century. However, is there a "right" way to worship according to the Scriptures? Have we discarded biblical patterns for worship?

Worship in the first church was God-directed, filled with sacrament and symbol, life changing, insider-shaping, seeker insensitive, even exclusive, yet multi-ethnic. Compare that to what characterizes the church in many places today: relevant, segregated, professionally orchestrated, culture-centered, and performance-based.

Author Ron Fessenden presents the reader with a thought provoking discussion of the contemporary church, highlighting changes that have their roots in non-biblical expressions or values, and describes how the church and its worship experience are increasingly defined in secular terms, how we seem to be in the midst of a slide away from the spiritual toward something more secular, and what might come of all this if we continue on the same path we are on now.