Church Shopping?

Have you seen the new Allstate commercials?  They all compare shopping for insurance with some type of actual comparison shopping (my favorite one is the guy with a baby on his chest shopping for diapers). I agree that one SHOULD “shop” for both diapers and insurance---in this economy we deserve to get the best deal that we can on anything that we choose to purchase!

However, deeper issues are at stake…these commercials only serve to reiterate the fact that we live in a consumerist culture.  There is nothing new about consumerism…it is the bedfellow of capitalism.  When I see these commercials I see so much more…a culture that cannot wait, who is entitled to instant gratification, and church buildings full of people suffering from this mentality that are desperately seeking something to cling on to in our ultra-modernist world that, by nature, desires change. 

Several writers in the early 90’s jumped on the “McChurch” and “McCulture” bandwagon. These authors intended to use these term derogatorily suggesting that we had become a church or a culture that was “cardboard” and undesirable…but instead, it came to be used of situations that require “fast food mentality.”  There is, perhaps, no business as consumer driven as the fast-food industry---it is expedient, cheap, and convenient.  WIWAK (when I was a kid) there was fast food…but is was not consumer driven---it was just food that was convenient (ur um…fast), but along came “Burger King” where “special orders don’t upset us” and they birthed a notion with their slogan “you can have it your way!”  We didn’t know it then but they were well ahead of their time.

Today it would seem absurd to drive through a fast food place and be forced to have an order that was NOT able to be conformed to the desires of the consumer…and oddly enough we feel the same way about the Church.

I grew up in a town of about 1,700 people with 5-6 churches and they were ALL the same!  Whatever differences they had were theological differences that most people really didn’t know much about…when you went to any of these churches you were going to experience pretty much the exact same atmosphere, the same music, and the same preaching (I haven’t been back for over 15 years but I would guess it is still pretty much the same!)…today people under 40 years old cannot even discuss where to get coffee or what to have IN their coffee without starting an argument!  So the Church tried the “McChurch” approach and found that it worked really well for awhile but the spirituality that was coming out of that environment was still stale and “inauthentic.” What we found was that whatever we were doing was NOT really bringing us closer to God…so we blamed the Church.

BUT…was (is) it really the Church’s fault?  Or is it our fault for having unrealistic expectations?  After all…we have a “specialist” for every age group (which relieves that parents of having to actually teach their children about anything spiritual), we have worship bands that sound JUST like the most current guys on KLOVE (or whatever other station we choose to listen to)—but oddly enough they are not preparing us for worship, and we have guys “giving talks” in their jeans and T-shirts about how much God loves us and how the concept of sin and hell are outdated theological notions…don’t we really need just need to “hang out” with each other to “build community?” Note that none of these things are bad in and of themselves…but none of them are really calling for us to change or for us contribute to transforming the world we live in!

I am not sure what bible everyone reads…but the one I read uses words like “one-another” and “sacrifice.”  In fact, at one point someone mentions about “denying oneself!” No wonder the Church is in trouble…NOBODY wants to hear or talk about these things anymore!!! Maybe that is PRECISELY the problem?  Or as church consultant Tom Bandy states, “Despite what they say, most Christians really don’t want to be LIKE Christ! Why? Because following Christ always sears your lips, dislocates your hip, drives you to talk to your enemies, and changes your name.”  I guess if it was easy everyone would make it (BTW…I am NOT a universalist), and clearly some will NOT make it…I am saved by grace but I continue to work out my salvation with MUCH kicking and screaming (translation mine)..why can’t somebody else be the one who is called to “go” and to “follow” by “denying themselves?”  No wonder the prophets all tried to get out of “being called!”

Let’s STOP shopping for the church that has everything we want…and START being the Church that God has called us to be! Someday we just might learn it has NEVER been all about us, AND (as predicted) “good thing come to those who…are faithful and obedient.”