Mere entertainment?

     This is the Christmas season, and churches are now busy getting ready for the Christmans program. Kids are learning their lines, costumes are being made, candy bags are being put together, and presents are being bought. All this is fun, and most everyone enjoys this time of year.
     It is also at this time that the "unchurched" come to church. They come to see kids or grandkids in the christrmas play, they come for presents, they come out of tradition, and many come out of guilt. Pastors get excited at the chance to present the gospel at this time.
     But, is the gospel really presented? Everyone gets to see a play about the birth of Jesus, and then hear a brief talk by the pastor, perhaps followed by a "blanket" sinners prayer, the kind where everyone repeats after the pastor. This looks at it is a good thing, and everyone hopes that someone actually prayed and meant it, but are people really getting saved? Did we allow the Holy Spirit to work in power convicting the lost? Was the whole gospel presented, sin and depravity, God's just wrath, man's hopeless condition, Christ's death and ressurection, repentance, submission to His Lordship?
     This might sound like I'm complaining, but in truth I see the same thing every year. The same people coming to these events for entertainment and leaving the same way they came in. A Christmas program is a great thing if done to exalt Christ, and perhaps there is a chance to see an individual saved during one, but let each one of us be filled with the Holy Spirit, and ready for any chance we have to reach the lost all year long!