Is the average contemporary protestant church more interested in making DISCIPLES of Jesus or CONSUMERS of Products?
Let's face it we are ALL culturally captive! (See Mike Brantley's post on Cultural Captivity HERE and read his confession HERE). How can we NOT be if we were raised in the Western culture. Part of our cultural captivity is the fact that we can have just about anything we want. If you live in America (or any other economically driven culture) than you ARE an "end-user!" And as an end-user, manufacturers market their goods directly to you for one purpose.....they want you to "consume their products."
Next time you go to the grocery store, count the obscene amount of choices of each given product you have to choose from. In my local store there are over 100 different kinds of cereal, 83 different kinds of toothbrushes, 22 different types of milk, 27 types of sponges, 43 types of flavored coffee, 212 different choices of beer (only 2-3 worth buying by the way), 23 different types of razors in 1,2 3,4 or 5 blades, 22 kinds of bread (not including the muffins), 49 flavors of energy bars, 117 kinds of body soap, 56 kinds of laundry and dish soap, and the list goes on and on.
Go to a big box home improvement store and bask at the plethora of choices for any given building product you may need. Go to the movie theater and see how many movies you can choose to watch, go to a restaurant and count how many choices you have on the menu, go to the mall and wander the empty corridors and marvel at the endless choices of products and stores at the tip of your credit card. If fact malls can't give us enough choices with just the stores, they have put kiosks in the middle just to give us consumable options in between stores. Coffee shops, sporting good stores, electronic stores, car lots.....you get the picture.
We are targets, end-users, consumers.....we only exist in the minds of the manufacturers of these goods for the sole purpose of consuming their products! And they want us to consume for one reason and one reason only....because they care about us! This is where the record would scratch and someone would say, "YEAH RIGHT!" No, the truth is, they only they care about is growing their business and taking more market share!
Our currency may say, "In God we trust" and our pledge of allegiance may say "one nation under God" but the reality is God has been marginalized in our CULTURE and we have replaced him with the god of consumerism. We have even built temples called malls and interdenominational temples called outlet & strip malls where we can go and worship this god. Some have even defined their traditional style of consuming as "retail therapy," while others have grasped onto the new emergent style of consuming via the Internet. On-line consuming is more relaxed and less structured and can be done in a smaller house settings outside of the traditional consuming style of consumer worship.
If all of the marketing and consuming stopped short of the goods that we consume everyday then I would feel like as a Christian, I would have a chance to somehow separate the temptation to worship this false god from the one true God. But the problem is this god of consumerism has infiltrated our communities, our churches. God has been marginalized in our FAITH and we have replaced him with the god of consumerism. I have discussed some of this in my past post HERE and HERE, so I will no belabor the same points (you can go back and read them if you'd like) but will instead make new ones.
Here are a few questions. Why do churches establish target audiences? Especially new church plants?
- Why do churches create a brand? Why do they market their brand?
- Why do churches market at all?
- Why do churches entertain with a well polished slick program every Sunday?
- Why do churches create programs where 95% of the people attending every Sunday sit passively?
- Why do people shop for a church that "fits them?"
- Why do churches not want to offend any attenders or make them uncomfortable?
- Why do church planters get compared to business entrepreneurs?
I realize that I am asking these questions with a broad brush. I know that there are a lot of churches that are doing some really good things and are doing them with the best intentions. I am just trying to understand why the church in the West has become such a business?
I think if you ask any well intentioned church leader these questions they would answer that they do all these things in order to bring people to their church so they can tell them how much they matter to God. And they want to create an atmosphere that is safe, contemporary and comfortable so people will want to stay and come back again and again. So they hone in on their target audience, plan their marketing campaign, program their weekend performances very strategically so they can accomplish this. And the reality is it works! People eat this stuff up. Churches that are really good at this are growing and the ones that are not are envious of the ones that are.
But is that Success? What are they really accomplishing? The majority of what I have seen and experienced is the god of consumerism:
- Consumers come in a variety of unique groups - that's why churches have target audiences.
- Consumers love the perceived security of brand names - that's why churches create brands.
- Consumers are pliable and love to be wooed - that's why churches market.
- Consumers love to be entertained - that's why churches create well polished slick programs.
- Consumers are trained not to talk during the program - that's why they sit passive.
- Consumers seek comfort - that's why churches want to be the right fit.
- Consumers are fickle - that's why churches don't want to offend their attenders.
- Consumers have choices - that's why churches don't want to make them feel uncomfortable.
- Consumers love new stores/products - that's why churches create new campuses.
If the whole purpose is to GO and make disciples then why is so much effort spent on getting people to COME and consume the goods in some building? Discipleship in it's simplest definition is complete adherence to emulating Jesus Christ. In other words making a bunch of Little Jesus' as Alan Hirsh discusses in his book, The Forgotten Ways. Of course, the only way you can actually make disciples is for someone to commit their lives to discipleship. But what does that look like?
Unfortunately this product of discipleship seems to be buried somewhere deep in the product offering of most businesses churches. Of course the idea is to get people to a perceived notion of discipleship once they become frequent shoppers and they can be moved through the bases of "spiritual growth." But let's face it! Once a church attracts consumers through a consumerist approach, the pressure to continue to develop new products and innovative approaches in order to keep the consumer entertained and happy only increases. The reason is simple, consumers constantly seek a new and better product that brings them the sense of euphoria that is only met through their consumption. This is the problem with the god of consumerism, it doesn't satisfy. It leaves you wanting more.
Sadly some churches have ushered this god, unknowingly, into the very fabric of their ministry, set it in place of the cross and given it the authority over Jesus. And in doing so they worship this god at every planning meeting, strategy session and vision prayer rally that takes place. This is a difficult god to give up and once you have pledged your commitment to it, it's hard to go back. After all when a church is in this camp they need to continue to grow their business (reach people) and take more market share (for Christ)!
