Church Shopping: Are You a Consumer?

My last post was about how we put God in a box.  At the end of that post I concluded that we should celebrate the diversity of churches and worship styles as pieces of the bigger picture of God and representative of His creativity.  In this post I want to explore the potential downside.

The danger in such variety is in falling prey to a consumer mindset, something that touches most everything we do in America.  We church shop.  There's no denying it.

It's one thing to find a local body of believers with which you connect and are able to develop your walk with God.  We are all different.  We all worship differently, we study differently, we learn differently, we grow differently.  And we are blessed, in this great nation, to have the freedom to worship, so we have the luxury of choice.  I'm thankful for that and I would never condemn anyone for searching for the church God has for them. It's a much different thing, and a danger, when we look for a church that works for us, instead of looking for a church with which we can work.


You see, as a Christian, church is not really about you.

What?

Church is not about you.

Jesus came for the sick, not the healthy.  If we are walking in the footsteps of Jesus, we are to go to the sick, not the healthy.  Yes, we're called to gather together with other believers as the Body of Christ.  We are called to worship together.  But that's where many stop.  We (me for a long time) are comfortable sitting with other "healthy" people (we assume) and listening but never acting.  The problem comes partly from our view of the church as a place we go and not something that we collectively are.  As if "church" is a building or a service rather than the living, breathing embodiment of Christ.  More about that in this post.  And so if we are the church, and we don't go to a church, then we should be functioning in the ways that we expect the church to function.  Meaning we come together to serve, not to be served.  We come together to bless, not to be blessed.  We come together, not only to be equipped, but to equip others.  And we come together to reach the world with the Gospel of Christ, not simply to hear the Word preached to us.  When we do this, the secondary result is that we are served, blessed, and equipped because we are participating according to God's design.

So consider this your call to find a body of believers to commit to if you haven't already, to quit shopping, to worship God together, but not to expect the church to be a Band-Aid for your week. Don't be idle, get involved, make a difference with the gifts God has given you, find out what those gifts are, experiment, exercise them.  Be a producer instead of a consumer.  Serve.

"So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.  Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant..."  Philippians 2:1-7 (ESV)