Most days I feel a great freedom in my identity, as I seek a better way to follow Christ and shepherd a faith community towards a missional, holistic existence.  

Then there are days like today. I spent the evening in a committee meeting talking about a new financial campaign to pay for the attractional efforts of the church I am currently serving.  I tried to move the group from a message of “you will be blessed by God when you are obedient in giving,” to a message of the church’s missional identity — inviting them to accept God’s invitation to be a part of His mission of restoration in the world.  Being the blessing if you will. 

I have not given up, but I must say that I feel defeated & drained.  These are the nights when I feel like Cypher in the Matrix.  I remember when he was having dinner with Agent Smith, and sealing the deal to betray the others in exchange for being plugged back into the Matrix with his memory erased.  

He said, “You know, I know this steak doesn’t exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain… that it is juicy… and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? Ignorance is bliss.”

No matter how beat down I feel, I will never surrender to blissful ignorance.  Turning the attractional church of propositions from the Believe + Behave = Belong, to the outwardly focussed, incarnational Belong + Believe = Become is the ministry that God has called me to.  

No matter how hard things get, I know there is nothing else that I could do.

As our church is still in the process of finding a new senior pastor, I have been thinking a lot about church shopping.  Most pastors strongly disapprove of church shopping and chalk it up to a young (and/or weak) faith.  “People shouldn’t hop from one church to another asking, ‘What does this church have to offer me?’ or ‘Is this church meeting my needs?’.  They should be loyal to their denomination, and serve in the church where they feel God can use them to improve things.”

While I agree that church (s)hopping is consumeristic and that the above statements are often the litmus test concerning the ‘right church,’ I do not agree with the hypocritical view that most many pastors hold.  First off, I feel that denominational loyalty is dead – or at least on life support.  Some will try a denomination’s church first out of familiarity, but I have seen too many lifelong Methodists go to a Baptist church (and vice versa) simply based on music, preaching style, and programs.

Music, preaching, and the programs offered to the churchgoer are in my opinion the three main factors of church shopping.  We all know that “meet my needs” is code for “meet my preferences,” and if you like power-pop worship bands, a pastor in jeans, a plethora of Max Lucado & Beth Moore studies, and a children’s ministry that is just short of Epcot – then that is what you will go on a search for.

The second (and main reason) that I disagree with many pastors, and see their loathing as hypocritical is because the way they choose to do church is the cause of many of these problems.  Pastors have stopped asking, “How do we reach people with the good news?” and have focused on, “How do we bring more people in, and how do we keep the ones we already have?”  The solutions to this question are all inwardly focused and attractional in nature.  Bigger more modern sanctuaries, polished rock bands with mega sound systems, catchy sermon series, the flavor-of-the-month study-in-a-box (yeah, I know it’s a lot of dashes, but I felt they were necessary), and a glossy website/ mailing campaign to let the world know where you are, so that they can come and see.

The church we are currently serving is your typical modern, seeker-sensitive church that is oriented around programs, “evangelistic theater” and servant-evangelism – all of which is meant to either get our name out to people, or get people into the building to see what we have to offer.  The majority of our 600+ people were drawn from another church by one program/play or another.

This brings me to two questions:

1)   How do you help a church realize that their attractional focus is not only enabling church shopping, but actually inducing it?

2)   Where do you start in an attempt to come alongside a consumeristic people, and help them to not only acknowledge their (mis)emphasis of inwardly-focused service to church members – and to recognize their missional identity as a people called to be a part of the missio Dei in the community that surrounds them?

OK, I know I snuck a whole lot into that last question, but I try to break the chronic three-points-itis whenever possible. 

I would love to know your thoughts on this, as my main focus right now helping our people realize their missional identity and the call of God, to move beyond the walls out into the community and show the love of Christ to people where they are.  I honestly feel that the missional identity has to be realized and owned before they can begin to accept the call to be incarnational.  But I will save that for another post…