This post is an epilogue to THE CHURCH – Losing the Battle for Attention (part 3).
Adoption of church growth strategies produces consumer churches, antithetical to the Kingdom of God.
Consumerism is the belief that consumption is the central purpose of our lives. This belief is based on the assumption that we individually have to take care of ourselves, and do everything in our power to secure our lives. It is characterized by lives that are structured around habits of consumption that serve no higher purpose, but have become ends in themselves, to be desired for their own sake.
| Characteristics of a Consumer Church |
|---|
| The church sees its self primarily as a vendor of religious goods and services. |
| The fundamental basis for attracting people to come to church is they can be fed, to have their needs met through quality programs. |
| Parents expect, and the church believes it is the church’s responsibility to teach the children. |
| The church depends on marketing strategies and objective measurement to achieve and measure “success”. |
| Other people, prospective members, are viewed as commodities, objects to be exploited for benefit. |
| Members pursue their individually-defined pleasures. |
| There is an expectation… demand … for unlimited choice of worship. |
| The true value of worship, events, and relationships is distorted. |
| Techniques and tactics of the culture are imitated. |
| The orientation of the church is primarily inward. |
| The functional purpose of the church is to meet needs. |
| The gospel is more about benefits that come with believing than with what God plans to do with those that give up all to follow him. |
| Leadership qualities and styles that nurture and accommodate consumer attitudes are valued most. |
| The poor are mostly ignored. |
“The contemporary American church is so largely enculturated to the American ethos of consumerism that it has little power to believe or to act.”
Walter Brueggemann
Foundational to consumerism and church growth strategy, individualism distorts the Gospel and the body of Christ.
A defining framework for Christianity in America is an emphasis on one’s “personal relationship with God.” Being a follower of Jesus is less about how one is a member and participant of a new kind of community and more about how one is nurturing a one-on-one relationship with God. This is encouraged and nurtured by the structure of a Sunday morning that is more consumer rather than communal, where the church needs people to “sign up” to be relational agents who greet people at the door — betraying a great possibility that the church would not greet without these sacrificial volunteers.
American individualism, to the extent America has embodied it, is destructive to the very core of what it means to be human. It creates a callousness toward others because anything less is to risk security, while within the church it creates an illusion of eternal security through individualized cognitive assent without any real invitation into the salvific nature of vulnerable relationship — which is what the church is called to embody.
…individualism will lead to conditional communities — communities where “relationship” happens so long as one’s individual freedom is not asked of them and such participation in the community individualized.
Within the church, individualism leads to an isolated Christian experience devoid of community and therefore devoid of the very salvation Jesus says is available to us now.
Ultimate fulfillment being found in self-reliance is the great deception of American individualism.
American Individualism is Destroying the Church and America 1 Steven Denler is a mental health therapist and theologian based in Seattle, WA. Steven is the founder of Theology on Tap, a wide-spectrum theological gathering that facilitates open dialogue to question, doubt, and re-understand core Christian theological beliefs. Outside of blogs and talks, Steven fronts a post-emo rock band called Dearheart.
More:
It is indeed tragic that contemporary Christianity has lost this ancient understanding of the faith. With the radical individualism of the modern world, the mystery of communion and true participation (koinonia) have been forgotten, and with them, whole passages of Scripture have ceased to have their true meaning. Even the word koinonia, which has the Greek meaning of “commonality” or “participation,” is rendered in English translations as “fellowship.” Fr. Stephen Freeman
Self-sufficiency is a belonging deficit. The spirit of the age (individualism) isolates us from the spirit of community (belonging.) Steve Elliott
Certainly, we must deal with individuals. But the very nature of our lifestyle and our church teaching must say from the beginning what the goal is—the communion of saints, a shared life together as family, the trinitarian life of God, the kingdom—here! Richard Rohr
Shalom seeks unity and community above division and self-interest, nourishes neighbour love and resists the discourse of division. Jim Gordon
“My dwelling place will be with them: I will be their god, and they will be my people” Ezekiel 37:2
I have honored my followers in the same way you honored me, in order that they may be one with each other, just as we are one. I am one with them, and you are one with me, so they may become completely one. Then this world’s people will know that you sent me. John17:22-23 CEV
“I will call them ‘my people’ who are not my people;
and I will call her ‘my loved one’ who is not my loved one,” and,
“In the very place where it was said to them,
‘You are not my people,’
there they will be called ‘children of the living God.’?” Romans 9:255-26 NIV
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” 1 Peter 2:9-10 NIV
But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. 1Cor 12:18-20 NIV
“All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.” Acts 4:32 NIV
Erwin McManus is right:WE are the church! The church is God continuing to live and work in this world through us. When we see the church that way, the focus moves off of ourselves and we break out of the consumer mindset.
STILL ON THE JOURNEY
- 1Steven Denler is a mental health therapist and theologian based in Seattle, WA. Steven is the founder of Theology on Tap, a wide-spectrum theological gathering that facilitates open dialogue to question, doubt, and re-understand core Christian theological beliefs. Outside of blogs and talks, Steven fronts a post-emo rock band called Dearheart.