What consumer benefits a church might offer has nothing at all to do with whether or not it is the place God desires a believer to be in order to grow and serve. God has a divine appointment for each of us, and finding it should be our goal. Then, with patience and grace, serving God and our brothers and sisters there should be our occupation until (and only if) God appoints us some place else.
We certainly have no right to treat our brothers and sisters as disposable and divorce ourselves from their fellowship because we've decided we can get a better deal somewhere else. God is the one who has made us parts of the body and he alone gets to appoint us to our place in the body.
What business does any church leader have, then, of dangling a carrot, trying to coax a believer to make a decision about where they belong on a basis other than God's appointment?
And evangelism is not soliciting suitors like Tamar enticed Judah. We can't initially camouflage the message of repentance and surrender only to unveil the truth of obedience and sacrifice later. Can it be any wonder that when it's time to pay the piper, such converts are as a fickle and disloyal as the rest of our hedonistic, consumer-driven society. If we tickle the flesh to get folk in, we'll get nothing but a giggle from them when they're called upon to stand up and be counted for Christ.
The gospel is good news and every biblically legitimate means needs to be employed to get it to everyone, but the often unspoken stark truth about its message is that embracing it means buying into your own death. The old-fashioned notion of fire and brimstone is unpopular these days because it's just not marketable. I don't care for it myself, it doesn't reflect biblical preaching in my mind, but the biblical message isn't any more palatable. The message Jesus preached to potential followers: "deny yourself, take up your cross daily and follow me."
I'm dumbfounded amidst a church world that doesn't understand it's own message. I mean, really, how can such a thing as church marketing even exist? It's not just oxymoronic, it's plain moronic too! No, it's even worse, it's faithless, and it's ruining the heritage of God. Let the self-centered consumers and ravenous church hawkers beware, you will reap what you sow.
So, we can build cathedrals of wood, hay and stubble, selling emptiness to the empty-headed and empty-hearted, but if we want to do what Jesus did, then we must come to terms with this: Christianity is actually selling death.
3 comments:
Apologist Greg Koukl likes to compare the postmodern view of religion as ice cream vs. the classical view of it being more like insulin. The more one believes that Christianity is simply something for people to try in order to meet some felt need, the more one is likely to try to "sell" it. Or, worse, to adapt it (from bough to root) in order make it into what people think they "need." Speaking the Gospel in the cultural language is one thing (delicate as that may be), but adapting the form and foundation of the faith to the culture itself is apostasy.
Paul,
Modern Christianity, IMHO, has been psychologized under a humanistic perspective. It's seen today more along the line of therapy for a better adaptation or experience of life, rather than the challenge of dealing with incontrovertible and unchangeable truth, particularly the truth that is Jesus, the Alpha and Omega and Lord of glory. Ice cream and insulin, I'd say is a very workable metaphor.
P.S. I've been looking forward to your next post.
Right, if it isn't truth — The Truth — then it can only be a social club or self-help system that we can offer to spiritual shoppers. "Try Jesus, you might like him. He worked for me."
As I've said before, if this stuff isn't real, then I'm sleeping in on Sunday. That "works" just as well for me as any metaphysical fiction. But if it is real, then Christ doesn't need to be sold to me; I need to bend the knee to Him. And I don't need a church that plays rockin' music or serves lattes; I need to seek a church that disciples me and honors Christ in the most sober and theologically accurate way that fallen human reason (guided by Scripture and the light of the Spirit) can discern.
The church should not be your mission field; it should be the Body of Christ. That philosophy may not rake them in by the thousands (Joel Osteen style), but it will indeed insure that those who do come are there for the goods and won't move on when and if they come to suspect you ain't got 'em.
(Sorry for the delay in posting. Been busy, and strangely haven't been in the mood to write in awhile. I've got a long one I'm slowly finishing up, though. One more volley against "moral" atheism before I move on to other things.)
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