I've got to confess that I'm more than just a little bit excited about the return to the small screen of 'Hey Hey It's Saturday'.

As a kid, I watched the show in its Saturday morning timeslot, when it was actually aimed at children. As I grew up, so did the program, and throughout its years on television I grew to enjoy watching as an adult (with its frequent double entendres).

It's hard to say exactly what I found so appealing about the show. Perhaps it was the high energy. Maybe it was the camaraderie of the team, and their ability to bounce off each other. Or maybe it was the fact that the show had the unpredictability of authentically live television.

Perhaps subliminally, the format and content of this live variety show has influenced the way I construct and lead Christian gatherings.

Maybe, I am subconsciously modelling my service leading on the mannerisms of Daryl, and constructing runsheets that follow the pace and variety of Hey Hey.

I am sure that I am not alone in doing this. The successes of Hey Hey's successors, such as Rove Live, have shown this variety format to be a popular way of entertaining viewers and engaging audiences.

If we look at the way that our conventions and conferences are often shaped, we will see a significant tip of the hat towards this popular culture (even though this show admittedly seems more to be a cultural relic brought back from the dead).

I suspect that our motivation for doing 'pop' church is in an attempt to connect with our culture. We have deigned that in order to build bridges with unchurched people, we should make our church as familiar as possible to their world, so that they might comfortably join us.

Yet, in doing so, have we devalued our Christian currency? Have we, to quote Marva Dawn in her book 'Reaching out without Dumbing Down', thrown out the baby with the bathwater?

On the one hand, this attempt to connect with culture is an act of kindness to our world, and shows our passion for mission. We have thought that to create an environment that is 'safe' for non Christians that it will remove any hurdle to them meeting Christ in the gathering.

However, the question remains as to whether or not this attempt to make the gathering accessible has in fact resulted in an erosion of the meaning of the actual gathering. Have we ended up turning our gatherings into light-hearted, over-relaxed, pop-psychology sessions with little sense of the presence of God?

For, if our gatherings are a genuine reflection of the heavenly gathering, where there is heart-filled and totally devoted worship of our King, then why don't we act like Jesus is present in the room, as he is by Spirit through his word?

Why is the dominant emotion of so many of our gatherings a sense of "don't worry, be happy", when the presence of our Lord in our midst should provoke remorse and repentance as often as it provokes rejoicing?

Perhaps 'Hey Hey It's Sunday' is not such a good idea, after all.

Jodie McNeill is the Executive Director of Youthworks Outdoors, and is in the process of trying to work out what the gatherings in the upcoming TWIST Music Conferences will look like.