December 2007 Archives
Thanks for reading Dying Church. Have a very blessed Christmas!
From In the Clearing: Beyond the need/fulfillment-of-need trajectory:
If, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, the call of Jesus Christ is always a call to come and die, well, that dying is not something the church can build a program around.
David Fitch has an important post that touches on some of ways that we see church as a product, and customer satisfaction as the goal. Although the post is on Willow Creek's Reveal, some of the ways of thinking about church seem to be fairly common. Fitch writes:
When you see the church as God's chosen social strategy for redeeming the world, the place where he is working, the social embodiment of His new way of life displayed before the world, it is hardly appropriate to ask someone if they are satisfied with it. It is like asking someone if they are satisfied with God's salvation in Christ. Rate your satisfaction?
To have power in your life as a pastor, it is supremely important that you make it a first order of business for the rest of your life not to do things to impress people or gain a reputation or protect your reputation. It is very clear from the Gospels that Jesus is calling us to deny some basic things in our personality--things that need to die. Jesus says in Matthew 16:24 to deny yourself; take up your cross and follow me. And I think that means dying to our fleshly love of impressing people in this way for glory for ourselves. (Jack Miller)
quoted at Buzzard Blog
Great comment on a great post (found via Bill Kinnon's linkblog):
The problem (from my perspective) is that Christianity in North America has become all about "my personal growth and development." (This is the commodity on offer at your local church). It's the logical conclusion to a seeker-sensitive gospel, but goes much deeper - it's part of the absorption of the world culture around us. The church isn't supposed to reflect the consumer culture of the world, but alas, it does.
This commodified Christianity has become a journey of self-actualization (majoring on the 'self' part) rather than an embracing of the cross and the gospel of the kingdom (which will cost you something - it's definitely not a desirable consumer product). It's really not all about me. It's not about my spiritual growth, it's not about my understanding of scripture, it's not about my service and volunteer work. It's just not about me and my needs as a faith-based consumer.
The paradigm of consumption has been debated recently. David Fitch has a good post on the topic.
