I got off the phone with my best friend from seminary. He is planting a new congregation and had a meeting with a couple of guys who came to interview him for a video feature about the new church. My friend started talking with them and asked them about their faith journey and their church experience. It turns out that they were once on the media staff at a large congregation that I admire quite a bit. This church is growing and dynamic and known from creative worship services and their use of media. People come from across the country to study this congregation and learn how they do ministry.
When my friend asked them about their current involvement in church, one of them simply said, "Well, to be honest, I'm re-thinking church."
In fact, he was re-thinking his faith. He was re-thinking Jesus.
It turns out that his experience at this congregation was not a good one. It was work. It turns out that what was this spectacular and moving worship service to those of us attending...was a show to him. He complained about rehearsals, and shallowness and "show" and people who cared more about deadlines than people... there was very little God in it for him.
I work with a bunch of creative people. We have a lot of fun and work pretty hard to try to communicate a message. I think our motives are right. I think our hearts are right. But God help us if we ever let our work FOR God replace the work OF God that God wants to do in us. Deadlines are important...ministry is important... but what good is "good ministry" if we are not conformed into the image of Jesus?
In what ways do your jobs enhance or detract from your life? If you are a Christ follower, does your work help that growth? If you are not a Christ follower, do you see your job taking away from the "one thing" in your life (be that family, or happiness, or a Higher Power)?
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I don't think that the church you mention is that great of a church. I think it is the kind of church that is appealing to middle- and upper-class (particularly white) people. I think it is an "ok" church. Big churches often remind me of what Keith W talked about recently: there is little "export" of the "product" because so much energy and effort is spent just to keep the "factory" running. The church's funtion becomes self-support, rather than community support. It is hard for me to justify huge church complexes. I think it is very, very easy for people to get hooked on the media aspects of Christiandom. Cynically, I would say, "...easy for people to enjoy the show." It is easy to get caught up in trying to make faith "relevant" by making it entertaining--because entertainment is whole-heartedly what our culture is about these days--rather than making faith active. Is it necessary that we spend all that money to make church more "contemporary" to attract rich people, when it is so difficult for the rich to accept the teachings of Jesus? (And ALL Americans are rich on a global level.) I'm thinking about Jesus' camel/eye of needle analogy, and trying to figure out what exactly it means. I ask these same questions of myself and my personal budget too. If I'm rich (whether I feel rich or not), where is my money going? To my own entertainment? I don't have solutions, just reactions. :) These are just raw feelings and thoughts. I sympathize some with the guy "rethinking" church--it sounds like he was looking for a way to serve God other than the ways he was offered. (I'm sure there's much more to it than that though.)
As someone who does church media, and a big fan of the church I think we're talking about, I think that it is all too easy for us to focus on working FOR God instead of working WITH God in a way that makes relationships central to the process. I am certainly guilty of that in my own life, both in ministry and in my day job. I'm very task oriented, and sometimes the task itself becomes all that is important to me. I was just joking the other day about heading up a group of volunteers for a project. I get quickly annoyed with people who don't meet deadlines, so I said to a friend that I would expect my volunteers to either complete their work or hand me their resignation by the deadline. While I do think it is VERY important for volunteers to be committed and meet their committments, that must always be built upon a relationship, both with the volunteers and with the people they serve. The trick is getting efficiency in work to go hand in hand with relationships, which are rarely a model of efficiency. But I know this is possible because I work with such a ministry group now. The work of God does get done, and our relationships are integral to that process. These are the people I wrote about a few days ago that I would be perfectly happy to be digging ditches with.
As for entertainment, it is nothing more than holding someone's attention long enough to convey a message. So, yes, entertainment belongs in the church. The problem is when the entertainment becomes the message instead of conveying the message. That's why the group I work with always says, "The media must not drive the message." Although we do like to joke about it being easier the other way. :-)
Big church complexes have never sat well with me; however, they are just tools to be used in doing the work of God. The problem again comes in how we use the tools. It's easy to use our building to protect us from the world instead of acting as a staging ground for going out into the world. The church I think we're talking about actually does a pretty impressive job of using their facilities. Amoung other buildings, they have a big poll barn that is used to repair donated cars to be given away to the poor. Those same rich people who get entertained (have the message of Christ delivered to them) on Sundays are out there during the week getting their hands greasy serving the poor. The big buildings only help them do that more effectively. And the entertainment only helps convey to them the importance of doing it.
Jessi says...Hey Paul! How hip of you to have a blog. Feel free to check mine out if you'd like...it's very non-Christian friendly and I tend to keep the topics free of Christianese if you know what I mean....come on by and visit. Sometimes it's not for the faint of heart, but hey...my mom reads it. :) lemonscarlet.diaryland.com I live in Pittsburgh now, BTW.
I guess I don't have a problem with media and "big churches" as much as I have a problems with "Jesus empty" churches. In fact, Jesus used the "media" of his day...coins, seeds, popular culture illustrations...and I believe he would use media in teaching today. But it wouldn't be a show...it would be based in relationships. So even the media team would first and foremost be about becoming like Christ and less and less about media. More and more about loving each other and less about loving the "flash." Great thoughts.
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