Well (and I can’t even believe it myself!), I attended my first Hell House last night while serving a brother of mine who runs a youth group made up of youth from several churches (many of which don’t have youth leaders, but that’s another story for another time!). And, I am SO thankful that I am a Christian now before I witnessed what I saw last night.
— SPOILER ALERT! —
Each scene (think of it as a multi-act play) depicted teenagers where decisions of right and wrong behavior were shown: drugs, dying for your faith, human trafficking, teen suicide, abortion, alcohol addiction, and dysfunctional abusive family. Then, partial video of “Passion of the Christ” (crucifixion and resurrection), some statistics on all of the aforementioned scenes, and then the last act was a depiction of hell.
Initially, I had planned on merely serving as driver of this crew of kids for my brother in Christ, JB, having no intention of going through the Hell House. I had brought a few books with me to read. JB was taken aback when he learned that I hadn’t planned on touring Hell House and encouraged me to reconsider. At his urging, I did.
As I toured Hell House (having heard of various versions of it from years past), I was not really all that surprised by what I saw. While many of the depictions of our current sin issues were portrayed accurately, I could not help but wonder (and, maybe my age of 46 played a part in this), “REALLY?! THIS ‘scare tactic’ is going to convince some of its audience to repent and make a real, intelligent and sincere confession of faith?” Unfortunately, with each conviction, my heart sank deeper and deeper.
At the end, there was a ten minute talk, led by (I guess) one of the pastors, telling us that they had hoped to have “planted a seed” and challenged those of us who professed Christ to distinguish ourselves from the world by “being in the world but not of it”. Then we were challenged to either proceed into the next room and pray with someone or remain in the room in our arrogance and pride (!) (of course, we all proceeded to the next room!).
In the Prayer Room, we filled out a form with our name, age, mailing address, what church we attended, email address, name of our “counselor” (the person assigned to our group) and lastly, 3 boxes from which to check “Salvation”, “Recommit” and/or “Prayer”. Once completed, then we were prayed over and ALLOWED to leave (I use “allowed” because I failed to check one of the boxes until I finally checked “Prayer”). I have NO idea what kind of mail I’m about to receive over the next few weeks!
I have SO many concerns about this presentation that have surfaced over the past few days of my thinking about this:
- There is an assumption that every tourist is a non-Christian/unbeliever
- There is an assumption that every tourist is an impressionable teenager
- Theologically (I believe that from what I saw, Hell House takes the Armenian stance), your decision to accept Christ is based on a “scare tactic” and doesn’t seem to allow an education of a loving relationship with Jesus Christ.
I grew up in a Christian home with loving parents, a mother and a stepfather. I made a decision of faith at a young age but I didn’t really understand fully what that entailed until much later in life and after a twelve year stint with a legalistic religious cult. It was not until the urging of a dear brother to begin attending a local Acts 29 church that the healing began and a better understanding of both grace and a loving relationship with Christ was TRULY about before I began to understand fully what being a Christian was all about – instead of a list of rules to follow to maintain salvation, a lifestyle to live in gratitude for what Christ did for me on the cross!
My heart grieves for those who made (and will make) professions of faith to follow Christ based on an emotional response to Hell House. Hopefully, they will begin attending a church which will mentor and shepherd them in a better understanding of what a relationship with Christ TRULY means. Currently, churches like The Village Church are overflowing with both members and regular attendees of 98% of those who, while sincere and well-intentioned, made an emotional profession of faith but didn’t come to a fuller understanding and appreciation for Christ and a relationship with Him and later, found themselves in horrible, retched but FORGIVEABLE situations which God used to lead them back to the cross and His Son.
In closing, I have a question: Where is there a “Hell House” for parents, explaining to THEM that the scenes depicted are REAL and unless THEY repent of THEIR selfishness and materialistic sin nature, that THEIR children will be tempted and seduced by the very things that THEY are facing now and subsequently, continuing the chain of sin, shame and misery?
