There’s no doubt about it... we are a consumer society. There are bumper stickers that say 'Born to Shop,' and shopping malls have become entertainment and cultural centers. We are no longer patients in a hospital, we are now 'health care consumers.'
This attitude has crept into the church. We have become consumers of religion, and we even speak of 'church shopping.' We come to church to have our spiritual needs met; and if they are not met where we’re attending, then we will try the next church, consume their religious goods and see if they satisfy.
Perhaps the main feature of the consumer church mentality is that the church is seen, maybe even unconsciously, as a “dispenser of religious goods and services.” People come to church to be fed, to have their needs met through quality programs, and to have the ‘professionals’ teach their children about God.
Now at first blush that may not sound so bad. I’m certainly fed and enriched by Sunday services, and I hope you are, too. And I think many needs are being met through the programs offered through the church. Children and adults are being taught about God, His ways and His love. That’s all fine and good, and people should expect these things from a church. So where’s the problem?
Well, the problem is kind of a subtle one. It’s a problem of attitude as much as anything. I think it comes from that perception of the church being the “dispenser of religious goods and services.” Do you hear the mechanical overtone in those words? A “dispenser mentality” suggests “lather, rinse, repeat,” something repetitive, cyclical, something done, then its over until the next time you do it. Kind of like, you put a coin in the slot and the religious product comes rolling out for he taking. The religious product might be the music, or a youth group activity, or the sacraments, or even the good feeling you get from Sunday worship. Insert your coin and a product appears. Everything’s OK for a while.
That attitude works until you don’t get exactly the product you want. The consumer mindset is focused on getting certain things from a church experience. Like a gumball machine: insert your coin and you get that really sweet and tasty red gumball, but suddenly a green one comes rolling down the dispenser, not what you wanted. You don’t like the way green ones taste.
So what do you do? You begin to re-evaluate [this whole church thing]. Is this machine still worth “investing” my coins in if I don’t get what I want [the church]? I might grow suspicious of the motives of the gumball company [the church]. And I’m really not so sure any more that the machine’s giving me “customer satisfaction” [the church]. And you know what? Occasionally the gumballs get stuck in the shoot and nothing comes out. Oops. We all hate it when that happens. Smack the machine around a bit. Kick it. Complain to the the management of the gumball company. You get the idea.
The church is not a gumball dispenser, a supermarket or a shopping mall filled with exactly what you want, or even “pick and choose” options to please our every desire and whim. It’s NOT a 'God store' dispensing spiritual nourishment for the masses in a wide array of flavors. If you attend a church hoping it will meet your spiritual needs, you will be mistaken. The church cannot meet your spiritual needs. I remind you, WE are not a religious institution. What we are, is a community of faith. We are believers, coming together to worship God, to be edified by the Word, to support one another in fellowship and to bear one another’s burdens. God and only God is the one who can meet our spiritual needs. The church is not a service provider; it is not a retail outlet; it is US... a community of people bound together by faith in God.
One of our greatest challenges of today is to help lead people out of a consumer mentality and to recognize the WE are part of a kingdom that is much different and far greater than any contrivance and philosophy of man.
When the church buys into the consumer approach, it may try to feed people what it thinks they want, [red gumballs] rather than trying to preach and teach God’s pure and undiluted truth, the way He wants it done for all of us. In God’s Church, there is no democracy. The idea that the "customer" is always right is a fallacy created by God’s adversary, Satan. If the cross on the building or over the baptistry is offensive to 25% of the “clientele” would you vote to get rid of it?
How can we overcome a culture that encourages the church to behave like a merchant, and encourages the churchgoer to behave like a shopper? Why is a shift in attitude so important? Non-believers should be able to look at US, the Church, and see lives that are so in tune with Jesus, so filled with grace and care for others that they would want to be around us. We should be seen as a body of people on a mission... who gather in assembly for worship, encouragement, and teaching from the Word of God... that supplements what they’re feeding themselves throughout the week.
We cannot be just Sunday Christians. We must be a people immersed daily in a Christian life, who come to church not as individual consumers, but come together joyfully as the living body of Christ fulfilling the Great Commission of spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ throughout the world... being the “light of truth” in our local communities.
If the Church is not that, then an indictment against Christians looms. An indictment that says... WE look and act no different than the secular culture around us. Could it be that one of the main reasons people aren't attracted to Christ is that those who claim to be His followers look pretty much the same as everyone else? That’s not surprising when WE the Church have a consumer mentality when it comes to the essentials of faith, worship and fellowship.
Christians must be people who realize that the church is not just about getting our individual needs met, but instead its about giving glory to God and offering hope and love to our fellow human beings. Do you hear the difference? It’s not about what “I” can get, but about what “we” can do. Did you get that?
