| [ # ] Why Go to Church? Part II | | Posted by Eric Stillman on April 1st, 2008 under Church, NewLife |  Print This Post |
Are you looking for spiritual meaning in your life? Weighed down by burdens, responsibilities, or guilt? Wondering if there’s any meaning beyond the day to day? Then come to NewLife, where you’ll find that Jesus is the answer to all you’ve been looking for!
That just sounds wrong, doesn’t it? Not that Jesus isn’t the answer, but something about the tone just sounds a little too salesman-like, doesn’t it?
Trouble with the wife? Problems with the kids? Or having trouble even finding a wife and having kids??? Don’t worry – come to NewLife! Let us help your family life become all you ever dreamed it could be!
As I’ve been considering the question Why Go to Church?, one of the biggest struggles I (and many other pastors) have is how to encourage someone to go to church without reinforcing a consumer mentality. How do you walk the line between attracting people to church and presenting churchgoing as just another consumer activity, akin to choosing which restaurant to eat at for dinner? How do you prevent your church from becoming a congregation of critics (hmmm… I liked the first couple songs, but I just couldn’t worship to the third, and that preacher spoke too long and said “you know” a little too much) and instead raise up a community of worshipers and servants?
First of all, let me explain why I have a problem with the consumer mentality when it comes to church. I believe the church as created by Jesus was meant to be a community of Christ-followers dedicating themselves to being His body in the world, continuing His work through the empowering of the Holy Spirit and the use of each members’ spiritual gifts, in order to reconcile a broken world back to a right relationship to God. This means that everyone must be involved in prayer and service for the good and salvation of the world. It means answering the question, “What can we do together by the power of the Spirit for each other, for this community and world?” The consumer mentality is completely at odds, because it asks the question, “What can you do for me?” The church consumer approaches his or her “church search” asking about Sunday School programs and quality of worship and even church facilities, all the while forgetting that the point of the church is not to serve the consumer but to be a community where each person can join in and serve this broken world.
Are you looking for just the right blend of contemporary music and traditional hymns? Do you prefer your worship services to go no later than one and a half hours? Preaching that will keep you awake and challenge you? Then come to NewLife! We’ve got all of that – and more!
Now, to be fair, there may be a place for the consumer mentality in the church. After all, I would not expect someone who does not know Jesus or believe the gospel to come to church expecting to jump in and serve. They are probably coming because they are looking for something for themselves – spiritual meaning, community, a place to discuss ideas, or help with problems. So I can understand when churches try to honor those who are searching by trying to deal with their questions and needs. But even presenting the gospel can be done by making it all about meeting the needs of an individual – come to God and he will forgive your sins, clear away your guilt and your past, give you eternal life, etc. The Bible is clear that there is more than that to the gospel; God is reconciling the world to Himself, restoring broken relationships between God and man, man and man, and man and the world, and through His Holy Spirit He is using His church to bring His kingdom of love, peace, and justice into this world. Check out 2 Corinthians 5:17-20, for example, and how it balances the personal needs and the needs of the world: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.The gospel means that coming to faith in Christ is not just a matter of getting things for yourself – forgiveness, eternal life, etc. – but joining a revolution of God that is devoted to seeing this world transformed into the world God intends for it to be. So, to get back to my original question: how do you encourage someone to go to church without reinforcing the consumer mentality? By preaching a gospel and giving a vision for church and life that is more than just what God and the church can do for you, but is about the incredible mission to which God has called each of us. God has called every one of us to lay aside our perceived needs, to trust that He will take care of those as we seek first His kingdom and His righteousness: So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:31-33). He has called us to stop being so self-centered and become a part of something greater – His mission to set this world right again.And, ironically enough, if the church is true to this gospel, I believe we will actually meet people’s deepest need, as we help people join their lives to the mission of God and discover what it means to live a life of eternal significance.
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