iChurch

The other night I had one of those painful conversations pastors engage in from time to time. It began with the words, “I want you to know I am leaving Village.”  It’s almost inevitable these conversations occur. Things change. People change. And sometimes, there are very good reasons people transition to another church community. Their career may take them to another city. The church may have drifted off into heresy, or intentionally stopped preaching the Word of God. Or there is a leader in the church, and he is engaged in immoral behavior, and the church has intentionally determined to not confront him. Perhaps the church has decided to leave its essential mission to reach lost people, love one another, worship God, or disciple the saints to become radical followers of Jesus.

But I fear that in recent years, the tendency to move is for other reasons—reasons that are less substantive, reasons explained by the age we live in. What I find is that people tend to leave because their needs are not being met; the other church has a better youth ministry; I’m not sure I want to invest in the cost that will be required to stay here; the music there is closer to our tastes; I find more people my age; this church, like every existing church, is going to one day die anyway.

Some time ago, I read an article that has parked itself in the back of my mind—one of those you say to yourself—“I will come back to this again.”  Skye Jethani wrote it in Leadership, entitled iChurch:All We Like Sheep. In it, he recounted a similar conversation and the things he processed. In effect, he asked, “Have we become so co-opted by our consumer oriented age, that we treat our church like a place we shop?”  Have we come to a place where we want church to be like our iPods—a place of personalized choices. Do we come and consume until we find something better down the street to meet our needs?

Sometimes I feel like our church is just one more brand out there. And I wonder if we have moved from a Christianity that was about relinquishing our desires, submitting to a community, learning to accept the blemishes and love those God has called us to love—to a Christianity that is all about meeting my needs, providing choices, and leaving if change does not happen on my timeline.

Before some of you line up to take issue with me, let me underscore that all of us bear some blame. It begins with pastors who all too often leave their churches for something more attractive. As Eugene Peterson once put it, too many pastors have a tendency to commit ecclesiastical pornography, lusting over the airbrushed congregational brochures, and using “the Lord called me” language to get there. It certainly hasn’t helped that pastors are also very quick to receive those who have gotten disgruntled down the street, without ever asking—could it be God wants you to remain, and work this through for the sake of the body?  If this is merely about preference, should you really be here?  Have you considered the hours and resources a body has invested in your lives?  At one point will you leave us?

Certainly leaders have also aggravated the situation by acting as “religious baristas” (Jethani’s words), supplying spiritual goods for people to choose from based upon their preferences. When I and my worship leader attended a church some years ago, to view its video ministry, we could not help thinking—this is consumer Christianity at its worst. Prefer an organ?  Come to this setting—we’ll even supply the pews. Want something that appeals to boomers—we’ve got bagels in the other building. Want rock?  Try out this venue, where we have created a nightclub atmosphere sure to attract those your age.

So we, pastors, leaders, have our failings as well. And maybe it started with holding to a rather lame ecclesiology, forgetting what God called the church to be in the first place. We may have failed to say the obvious, that much of consumerism is incongruent with a Christian community, unrelated to life devoted to following in the steps of Jesus. Maybe we failed to make it clear that churches don’t have to die. That an existing church, with some of its wrinkles and brown spots can be the emerging church of tomorrow if we are willing to invest our energies and passions to get it there, taking advantage of its structures and history. Maybe we failed to say that we both value and need the next generation, and missed underscoring that the next generation needs those of us who have been down the road a bit. We have been through the dark night of the soul and experienced God on the other side. We have faced certain losses, including lost dreams. We have seen what pride can do to ruin success, been shaped by both helpful and abusive voices, and gained a certain wisdom in the process.

The irony is that I find a younger generation sick of a consumerism that has reduced everything down to our narcissistic desires. But I find they are no less prone than any other generation to move when their needs are not met. Unless my experience is different, I find that a younger generation is no more inclined to join a church than a boomer generation, when in reality, the point of joining is to enter a covenant. A covenant that says, for better or worse, this is the body God has placed me in, and I will love the people and submit myself to those God has called to lead, and I will unleash my gifts, and I will sit at the table with everyone else and lead the church forward. And if things are not where they should be, I will stay at it until they are, or until God shows me differently.