The Sex Appeal of the Church

Many churches have never looked better than they do today. Their buildings, websites, and worship services have considerable sex appeal. They display elements of cool, success, and celebrity packaged together brilliantly.

I was in a church building recently and was amazed by the beauty and magnitude of it - flat screens TV’s, vaulted ceilings, and a restaurant were just a few of the things I noticed.

One pastor, who paid a group of consultants to overhaul his church's website, told me, “Church websites just can’t compete, but now ours can.” I regularly receive unsolicited emails targeting pastors. Messages that promise make communication clear, concise and “well-branded.”

This same focus is concentrated on Sunday services too. They are a spectacle - a clever mix of laser-light shows, rock concerts, motivational speeches, and theater. The creativity that churches have the ability to muster is incredible, but there is a risk.

In doing all we can to create mass appeal we are showing people something of a façade. It’s like magazines in grocery store checkout lines. They feature pictures of men and women on the cover who are fit, attractive, successful, or famous (usually a combination of all these).

However, these magazines are cloaked in a thin veneer of perfection that, unfortunately, many fail to see. As a result we have been seduced by image, celebrity, and success - and allow ourselves to live in a world of make believe.

The subtle message being sent is to “be perfect.” So we live like we are at Disney World - the “happiest place on earth.” But has it ever occurred to us that Disney is also the least realistic place on earth? The trouble is the more time we spend outside of reality; the more difficult it is to return.

Regardless, many spend their time trying to make church a kind of Disney like experience by trying to be cool, building the brand, and crafting an image. In this, we lose the ability to be authentic, and when this is lost we cease to be the Church.

Perhaps recalling the central symbol of Christianity would help us a great deal – the cross. It is this Roman instrument of torture and death that God used to put love on display by bleeding and dying. This picture invites all who would come to die to themselves so that they might find real life. The cross asks us what's in really stirring in our hearts.

You can’t make honesty “well-branded.” Being real about who we are – in all of our failures and brokenness – is messy and dirty. Yet that is exactly what's real and what is so desperately needed.

Churches need to spend less time on appearance and more time in contemplation of the person of Jesus - who made himself nothing, humbled himself, and became obedient to death - even death on a cross. If we commit to doing that, the Church will look far better than we do today and have more appeal than ever.

No Spaces

Many of you who subscribe to my blog have emailed me to let me know of the formatting problems with Google reader. The problem is that every few words there is not a space. This can make it difficult to read the blogs easily.

The issue appears to be a problem on their end, as Blogger has recently begun using a new template. I apologize for the problem, and have contacted Blogger to try and resolve the issue. Again, sorry for any inconvenience.

Not Much of a Joke

“A rabbi and a priest walked into a bar …” Any story that begins that way is bound to be a joke. Jesus begins a story like this; except it’s not a rabbi or a priest or a bar. His story begins with a  Pharisee and a tax collector going to the temple (read the story from Luke 18).

These two men lived on the opposite ends of the social, religious, and political spectrum. A Pharisee was passionate about God’s commands and seeing the nation of Israel liberated from its oppressor, the Roman Empire. The tax collector was a bit of a different story.

His trade was known for corruption. Tax collectors were known to collude with Rome, bilk money from their fellow citizens, and it was safe to assume they didn't  care much for God’s commands.

These two come to the temple to pray. The Pharisee goes first, confidently saying, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people - robbers, evildoers, adulterers - or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.”

Then it’s the tax collector’s turn. This guy stands in the back, can’t even look up, beats his chest in mourning and barely mutters the words, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” Jesus concluded, “I tell you the tax collector, rather than the Pharisee, went home right with God.”

Those in the audience would not have thought this was much of a joke, since many were those confident in their own ability to be right with God. Some may even have been thinking, “I don’t get it,” and today, many still don’t.

To pray along with the tax collector is to tell God that we don’t have it all figured out, that we are messed-up, and that we haven’t gotten everything right before showing up. It’s to lay bare before God and simply say, “Help.”

But we are far too sophisticated to do that kind of thing anymore aren’t we? While we may not pray exactly like the Pharisee, we still think that somehow all of our good behavior or religious fervor will impress God. This is why so many of us do all we can to appear as though we’ve got our lives worked out. In reality, what we allow people to see is false front built to hide our hurting and broken souls.

A friend recently lamented to me, “The world I live in pretends that everyone is perfect. So if you do something imperfect you get crapped on. Why can’t we all recognize that we are imperfect. Then, if you happen do something perfect, we can celebrate that.”

His world is sad, but unfortunately for many, it’s true. Perhaps our prayers for ourselves and others should have more heart and less words. Maybe all we need to say is, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”

“I tell you that the one who prays that prayer will go home right with God.”

God as Subject

Have you ever thought the phrase “personal relationship with Jesus” was a tad curious? I’ve never understood it. One of my best friends is a guy named Jason Deugan. Most everyone I know calls him “Deugan.”

Never once in the more than fifteen years that we’ve been friends have I ever said, “I have a personal relationship with Deugan.” I asked him about this, and he said he’s never said that about me either – but he did once say it about Jesus.

What’s more confusing to me is that while we like to speak about having a relationship with Jesus; we often relate to God more as object than subject.

We have particular beliefs about God, and when we meet other people who believe the same things about God we can worship together. If they believe differently … well, they need to worship somewhere else. Most of the time when I hear people speak about God, or speak to God, it sounds peculiar.

I say this because I never hear a person talk about their spouse the way they speak about God. When I hear a parent talk about their child they don’t use the same words about God. When someone is describing their deepest, most intimate relationships with their friends it is not the same way they speak about their “personal relationship with Christ.”

Perhaps its because for many, God is an object not a subject. It’s safe to say that God isGod; nobody or nothing will change that. However, as a relational being, God relates to his sons and daughters differently. Much like the way I relate to my wife, kids, and friends differently.

It’s not that I change, after all there are things about me that are fundamentally true. Yet if you were to speak to different people who know me well, while there would be some overlap in what they said about me, there would be quite a bit of difference. Some of what you heard would even sound contradictory.

Why would we expect God to be any different? While there are some things about God that are true and unchanging he is in relationship with millions of people who know God and are intimate with God in an untold number of ways. This means there are unlimited ways of speaking about God as people who are in relationship with him.

Some of these descriptions may differ and even seem to contradict another. The response to this kind of thinking is often to quash any talk of God that does not fit into one’s own experience. We think that if God has not acted that way toward us, then it cannot possibly be true.

Perhaps it would do us good to listen to others when they speak of how they know God. We may learn more (and be able to share more) about a God that is beyond a “personal relationship” and is no longer an object to behold. Just like a good friend named Deugan.

Disagree to Agree

We have more choices about most anything in our lives than we ever have had before. There is a niche for most everyone. The masses have the power to choose when, how, and what kind of information they will take in. Thinker and author Seth Godin wrote a book about this reality in his book titled Tribes.

While there are certain advantages to this new reality in our culture, there is also a dark side. Our ability to selectively choose what information we receive has lead many to limit the number of voices giving the information. Those that we do choose are often those with whom we already agree. This skews perspectives rather quickly.

Most information is tainted with bias. The news media is filled more with opinion and spin than ever before. As more people listen to only one side the spin they hear is mostly in one direction, and the perspective they see is from one place. 

In this we become more isolated and spend our time with our tribe - the people who look, talk, and think like us. All of this leads to our attitudes and opinions being affirmed over and over again. 

With this constant affirmation comes a tremendous increase in comfort. And we love comfort, don’t we? It seems that comfort - along with certainty and security - are our most deeply held values.

We have lost the desire (or perhaps the ability) to listen to someone who is not a part of our tribe and as a result have stunted our growth. We only give any real consideration to those with whom we agree. Why? Because it’s comfy and cozy.

This insular culture has reduced our capacity for critical thinking. We don’t have to think seriously about our beliefs and values anymore, because everyone in our  controlled sphere that we call "our world" thinks and lives like us. Conversation is rarely a challenge to think or grow, but a time to reinforce deeply held beliefs rooted in biased perspectives.

And what happens when a person from outside our tribe breaks in and challenges our thoughts or beliefs? We attempt to destroy, not only the opposing argument, but the person posing the argument. Our narrow, one-sided way of living has threatened our ability to speak with respect, dignity, and civility.

It is commonplace to launch a violent, verbal barrage of shock and awe on those from a different tribe. When this happens our tribe applauds, because comfort has been successfully defended. And with so many cheering for this kind of toxic rhetoric, how could it possibly be wrong?

It is time to open the windows and unlock the doors of our stuffy little houses of opinion, and let in the fresh air of descent. This would be our first step toward the discovery of things in this world far greater than comfort and security. Perhaps, our first step is to disagree to agree with all of those who inform our world.

F-ing Prayer

Years ago I went for a drive at 1 AM. After driving aimlessly for thirty minutes or so I was at a stoplight. I looked up through my moon roof and prayed for the first time in months. “What the f*ck are you doing to me?”

That night in my car I vomited my rage, anger, sorrow, and fear all over God. It would have been censored if it were broadcast on network television. But in that moment that was all I had. There was nothing in me that could be happy or thank God for anything.

I hadn’t thought about that night until a few weeks ago. I grabbed a beer with a fellow, and he told me about the unexpected twists and turns in his life. His face screamed in pain as he spoke. He sat back, exhaled deeply, and said, “I just want to yell at God about this, but I want to have faith that he knows what he’s doing.”

Why do we make “having faith” and “raging before (or even at) God” things that are incompatible? What if these things go hand-in-hand?

I asked him if he was the kind of person that had an explosive temper. He chuckled and said, “Oh yeah.” Without my asking he told me about the latest circumstance that caused an outburst.

“In those moments is there someone you can call?” I continued, “The kind of friend that when they answer you can get rich to the screaming and yelling without saying hello knowing then won’t be offended?”

“My brother,” he said. His brother was his best friend; they talk about everything. He loves and trusts his brother because he knows that his brother will always love him.

I do the same thing as him. When my life is hard, when something angers me, or when I’m hurt there are friends I can call and unload on them. I know they are there for me. Friends like this remind me that I am loved and accepted exactly as I am. How much more God? Do we trust him as much as our friends?

Many people have this idea that faith precludes questions, anger, or doubt aimed his way. This is backwards. Faith is the very thing that allows us to do all these things. A beautiful display of faith is to trust God enough to give him our unfiltered pain, anger, and disillusionment – even if it gets explicit at times.

Faith is to be found not in our controlled prayerful monologues where we tell God what we think he wants to hear. Deep trust is telling God what’s really there - uncensored - knowing that he’s big enough to handle it.

God as an African Mother

Imagine God in a hospital room where there is pushing, groaning, and gasping as a mother gives birth to a child. By the way, the mom - the one that everyone is standing around – is God.

In Paul’s letter to the church in Rome he wrote, “In the same way … the Spirit [of God] himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.” This causes us to ask, “’In the same way’ as what?”

That question will lead us to the verses imediately before where Paul wrote, “We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth ... and we ourselves … groan inwardly.” The Spirit of God groans along with creation and us in the pangs of childbirth.

This is not a deity who stands far off and winces when he considers the pain of mere mortals. This is a God who carries our pain within him - even pain as intense as childbirth. Which naturally raises the question, “God knows what it’s like to have a baby?” It appears so.

The prophet Isaiah points us toward this when God speaks about his panting and gasping “like a woman in childbirth.” The Hebrew and Greek word for “compassion” - so often attributed to God - come from the root for the word “womb.” This understanding of God led St. Clement of Alexandria to say “… in His compassion to us God became Mother.”

God knows quite a bit about being a mother. That means he is acquainted with the pain of childbirth, which causes the groaning of creation and makes us groan inwardly. That kind of pain is something that only moms can truly understand.

At least that’s what my friend Pam told me. She coaches soon-to-be moms through childbirth. Some time ago we were having a discussion about her job and she said to me, “My job is to help women have a good birth.”

A “good birth,” she explained, is when women surrender to the pain because they know there is benefit. This can only happen, however, when other moms are with her in the pain. That’s when she told of certain places in Africa where a woman in childbirth is never alone.

When a mother goes into labor the moms in her community come, place their hands on her, wail, cry out, gasp, and groan with the mom giving birth. Their sheer presence and ability to feel the pain with the woman in childbirth doesn’t remove the pain, but allows the mom to surrender to it. The benefit in all of this?

New life. Something miraculous happens the moment a child is placed into the arms of the mother - the pain is somehow suspended and the mother understands the benefit.

How can all of creation and all of us ever surrender to the pain to find the benefit? Because we serve a God who, like an African mother, knows the pain. So he gasps, pants, and groans with us until through the pains of childbirth.

Until at last, through His miraculous grace we discover that all the pain, suffering, and brokenness will bring about new life.

Consuming the Church

The message is simple: Consume. This is the petition that billions of people receive thousands of times every day from global corporations, and it’s not even subtle anymore. One electronics giant recently released a television that they promised would “change your life.”

Consumerism has become so much apart of our world that one’s ability to amass material possessions is a measure of their success. We long for products, brands, and the latest amenities that act as a status symbol.

This way of thinking and living has largely been created by a partnership between producers (corporations) and consumers (you and me). They tell us what we need and want, and we oblige them by plunking down the cash to satisfy our hunger for more. It is an endless series of transactions that happens everyday.

To an alarming degree, we have traded in our glory as image bearers for a diminished role as simple consumers. Worse yet, many church leaders may be part of helping this happen.

In our world today more pastors and church leaders are soaking in the words, thoughts and philosophies of CEO’s, corporate strategists, and presidents of corporations. I recognize that several of these people are good, kind, and generous and possess certain insights about leading that would help anyone.

Nonetheless, these people are at the helm of large companies whose survival is in direct relation to production and consumption. Products are created, manufactured, marketed, and sold to people who possess an endless appetite for more. All of this boils down to one thing: “the bottom line.” If a company can reap profits, then they go on producing goods that will in turn be consumed.

Pastors and church leaders sit under this teaching of corporate philosophy, and many do a brilliant job of implementing these principals into the organizational life of their church. At the same time I hear many pastors lament about many in their congregations who are “just consumers.” Is it possible that their system is perfectly designed to yield the results they are getting?

The reality is that many who are a part of churches today are consumers. Many attend a church service on a Sunday, grab a cup of coffee, enjoy the show, are entertained, and then leave … until the following Sunday. When one church gets boring, or feels old they move on to consume somewhere else.

This pattern is, no doubt, a reflection of the constant message people receive everyday from corporations to consume more. However, the message within many churches is no different because those who influence the minds of many church leaders are the very ones leading the corporations that influence the minds of the general public.

Maybe it’s time for pastors to stop asking, “What’s wrong with our people?” and begin asking what may be wrong with our message and us. We need to offer our people a different way, and allow them to see what life is like beyond consuming.

This can only begin when we show them what this is like by the way we live our lives. If you're wondering what that life might look like - we should begin with Jesus who was not about consuming, but about giving his life for the healing of the world.