"During my conversation with Greg and Margaret at Starbucks, I asked how they came to choose Faith Community as their new church. "Did you pray as a family about this decision?" No.
"Did you involve your small group or seek the wisdom of an elder in the decision?" No.
"Did you investigate the church's doctrine, history, or philosophy of ministry?" No.
"Did you base your decision on anything other than what you 'liked'?" No.
Believe it or not, Greg and Margaret are educated professionals capable of making intelligent decisions. How then do we make sense of their impulsive church shopping?
Being fully formed in a consumer worldview, Greg and Margaret intuitively accepted that the personal enrichment and fulfillment of desire is the highest good. As a result, they chose the church that best satisfied their family's preferences without bothering to consult their community, the Bible, or the Holy Spirit to gauge the legitimacy of those desires. After all, in consumerism a desire is never illegitimate, it is only unmet."
The above is a quote from an article that provoked my thinking quite a bit.
It was written by Skye Jethani, and essentially discusses the impact that our consumer culture has had on Christians in North America. In particular, he speaks to the reality that for most people, church is another 'product' that is 'consumed' based on our personal choices.
(the entire article can be found at: http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2006/003/3.28.html
I've encountered many people who have changed churches for exactly the same reasons as the people in Skye's article. In many ways its become a completely normal part of church life but surprisingly, I don't have a problem with it. I don't like it, but I don't spend time worrying about it either. The core issue when people leave is that it's painful. There is a loss of relationship and often we take it personally because we feel it reflects negatively on us. 'What's wrong with our church?' is the typical question that gets raised.
‘Church shopping’ has long been decried as a negative dimension of North American church life. So what is the problem?
Skye gets to the root issue:
“In consumer Christianity, however, church leaders function as religious baristas, supplying spiritual goods for people to choose from based on their preferences. Our concern becomes not whether people are growing, but whether they are satisfied. An unhappy member, like an unhappy customer, will find satisfaction elsewhere.”
The desire/concern is to keep people coming back to your church, and Skye is right in pointing out that this motivation is sadly lacking in substance!
However, what I feel he is missing is this: I don’t think the issue is whether or not people should be choosing the church they feel is best; the issue of leaving one church for another is that relationships are broken. We don’t leave one ‘institution’ for another; when we leave a church we are leaving relationships. If we keep moving from church to church, we limit ourselves to shallow relationships and Jesus is clear that relationships are the key context in which our hearts can be transformed into His likeness.
One of the tragedies of modern day divorce rates is that people are simply giving up on relationships and seeking new ones, all the while failing to realize that long term committed relationships are essential for our maturity and spiritual growth. The same applies in the church: if we continually leave current relationships in search of new and better ones, then we will fail to be transformed into the image of Christ.
When The Canopy was planted, we believed that people would ‘come for the worship and stay for the preaching’. 4 years later, I realize how wrong that idea was! People come to a church for a variety of reasons, but they stay because of relationships. Not the music or the preaching or even the church vision; In fact, I believe that people will stay in a community, even in spite of the music and the preaching, if there are strong relationships.
If a commitment to relationships (both good and bad) is not there, then people will often move on in search of something else. From my perspective, if they are moving on, then why not choose a church where you like what’s going on. If you don’t, it’s like suffering through a movie you don’t like! Move on and find something you do like.
There will always be a segment of the people who move around all the time from church to church. I don’t really care all that much if people leave; I’m certainly not going to scramble around trying to be a ‘spiritual barista’!
That said, there is a real need for people to understand the essential nature of relationships, which require a long-term commitment. Jesus called us to love one another in order that we might be continually transformed into His likeness. So we need to be committed to a group of believers in the good times and in the bad, and not allow ourselves to be tempted to always look for greener pastures.
