Our deepest need?

This post is about what I think Christians' greatest need is in the present. I am writing it in connection with my new column in the United Methodist Reporter.

I've been reading a lot the past couple of months about the Great Awakening and the birth of the modern evangelical movement in the 1730s and 40s. When you look at what people like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and John Wesley were focused on, there are differences related to each leader's personality and ministry setting. But there's one thing with which they were all concerned: the New Birth.

In "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," Edwards warned about the dangers facing "unconverted persons" in the congregation. Whitefield practically willed others to experience the New Birth in his impassioned sermons. And Wesley was convinced that the revival in England was occurring because evangelical ministers were preaching a strong doctrine of justification by faith alone.

I mention this because I think that a strong message about the New Birth was exactly what the church needed at that time. The church had been under assault by Enlightenment rationalism for decades, and the latitudinarian attitude of many in the Church of England hierarchy didn't do much for nurturing a vibrant faith.

And us? My strong view is that the deepest need in the church at present is real community. Everything about our culture teaches us to be individualist consumers. When we go to church, we do it with the mindset of customers. When we engage in discipleship, we often do it as religious consumers looking for a return on our investment. The market mentality of American society pervades everything we do. It is so pervasive, in fact, that we often don't realize it is there.

Without the church, we have no hope. The church is the body of Christ. That means no church, no Jesus. And no Jesus, no salvation. Unless we learn how to overcome the fragmentation that plagues us at present, I fear for our future. I have no plan to offer, no easy solution for overcoming the whole freakin' culture. I do think it has something to do with re-learning what it means to be friends with one another. But that isn't as easy as it sounds.

"Healthy Spiritual Consumerism"

Is there such a thing?

Fuller Theological Seminary president Richard Mouw thinks so. In a recent Christianity Today article entitled, "Spiritual Consumerism's Upside: Why church shopping may not be all bad," Dr. Mouw argues that doing a little church shopping isn't such a bad thing. He offers several anecdotal examples of positive church shopping before offering a an analogy that bears further scrutiny: Dr. Mouw argues that church shopping for Protestants is akin to the Roman Catholics discerning a spiritual vocation (to, say, the Jesuits, a Benedictine monastery, the secular priesthood, or some lay ministry).

It is, at best, a thin comparison. Ideally, no Catholic is going to settle on a vocation without serious and in-depth spiritual discernment. Such discernment should involve rigorous spiritual direction with a mentor, prayer and contemplation, and (if entering a religious order) a time spent in some type of novitiate before permanent vows are made.

Your ordinary run-of-the-mill church shopping doesn't really work like that. It relies on the language of getting your spiritual needs fulfilled, which doesn't sound a whole lot different from the kind of "needs" that Wendy's, Wal-Mart, and Macy's want to fill for you. People hop from church to church based on lots of things, and not many of them are good: the quality of programs for their kids, the kickin' praise band they've heard about, or the hot new preacher. Now none of those things are bad taken on their own, but the problem is that they're not taken on their own. They are typically extensions of the mindset that our rapaciously consumerist economy nurtures in us in untold insidious ways everyday. You are the customer and every corporate or institutional body you encounter is put there to serve your felt needs. So when you run into a problem with your kid's youth minister, or when the praise band gets stale, or when the hot new preacher leaves to go minister elsewhere ... well, you kind of drift to the next church you find that can meet those good old "needs" you feel right down to the ground.

The issue Dr. Mouw never addresses in his article is one of permanence: When a Catholic chooses a vocation - especially if that involves either ordination or monastic vows - the idea is that the vocation is a lifelong one. Church shopping isn't lifelong at all. It can recur again and again over the course of a lifetime. And in that environment, the development of real, deeply-committed discipleship is impossible.

There are no solitary Christians. We have to be in a community to know Christ fully. And when we keep bouncing from community to community as spiritual nomads, we end up looking for exactly the wrong thing -- we look for the community that will serve us best, rather than the community where we can best serve Christ.

Letter to a reader

Sometimes it is interesting to compare what gets responses from a United Methodist Reporter column versus what gets responses on the ol' blog. My post last week on the "Cheating on your church" Reporter column got almost no response from blog readers.

But when the actual column went into the print edition of the Reporter itself, I was inundated with e-mails from readers of the newspaper. As always, some were positive and some were negative. But the difference was that the negative ones were from people who were genuinely upset with me. They perceived the column as threatening, intimidating, or harsh. This was a surprise to me (as it always is when I get that kind of response). My writing is intended to help others think constructively about important issues related to our common faith, and this column was no different.

Nevertheless, I make goofs. And sometimes language I use can be interpreted in ways I did not intend. So in case you read the column and didn't like it, I wanted to offer some explanatory comments. To do that, I will print an excerpt below from a response I sent to one reader's concerns. For the record, this wasn't one of the angry readers, but was rather one who was writing to ask about the implications of switching from one denomination to another. Here's the excerpt:

Dear _______,

... Let me say a bit about why I wrote the column: As a pastor in the UMC, I am concerned about the path our church travels. I want us to be faithful, and I want us to proclaim the gospel of salvation to the needy. Some people have written me concerned with a perceived harshness in tone with this column in particular. Of course, I would never write anything to try to intentionally frighten or intimidate those in the church. I do, however, think it is important to think critically about what church membership means. And I think it is especially important in our current cultural climate, when we are taught to think of ourselves first and foremost as consumers who deserve to have their 'felt needs' met on demand. The way of salvation that Jesus Christ offers us is a far cry from the shallow version of happiness offered by secular culture today. My principle worry about church shopping is that it ingrains the consumerist habits of the secular culture rather than replacing them with the discipleship habits of a follower of Christ.

In addition, we do make vows upon church membership, and those vows need to be taken seriously. My comparison of them with marriage vows was only intended to highlight that fact. In a sense, I wrote the column because of the very high view I have of the role of the church in our salvation: it is where we are taught about Jesus, it is where we hear the Word preached, it is where we receive the Sacraments, it is where we are formed as disciples, and it is where we learn to be in relationships of sisterhood and brotherhood with Jesus' friends. That's all really important stuff!

Thanks again for your letter. I am very happy to hear that you have found a home in the UMC that is nurturing your faith!

Yours in Christ,
Andrew Thompson

Cheating on your church

Sometime ago I began developing an idea for a UM Reporter column on church membership. I moved that idea off the backburner after reading this blog post by Amy Forbus on the Methoblog. Frankly, the understanding of United Methodist church membership is about as shallow as our ecclesiology in general. But it is also an issue with which many people can relate, and because of that, engaging it might be a helpful in getting Methodist folks to think more broadly about the doctrine of the church.

The central problem with the idea of church membership in a society of 10,000 denominations is that it inevitably takes on the characteristics of what social scientists call a 'voluntary association.' Like a civic club in many respects, people join churches today with few requirements and little expectation. You get out of it what you put into it, so to speak, and no one is going to bother you too much if you just get your name put on the rolls for social reasons. When the 'voluntary association' mentality is combined with a market economy where all like 'products' compete for 'customers,' it means that churches will tend toward treating their evangelism as a form of marketing veiled in religious language. And that only waters down the understanding of what commitment to the church through membership means even further.

This is true of American church membership in general, but of course United Methodist church membership is a leading example of this norm. Our anemic understanding of membership is ironic in many ways, particularly with respect to the language of current membership vows in the United Methodist Hymnal. In our Hymnal, the pledges of membership we take to both universal church and local congregation are true vows spoken in a public setting. The fact that people then feel free to disregard them in such a cavalier fashion is remarkable.

There are some legitimate reasons to leave a church once you join as a member, as I argue in my current Reporter column. But they are few in number. And most reasons people leave amount to nothing more than ecclesial adultery. When you promise fidelity to both Jesus and a congregation of his disciples and then break that promise over matters as simple as boredom with worship or frustration with a committee, you are running out on the bride of Christ. It's cheating on your church, folks.

I can tell you that my comments on Amy's blog post and my Reporter column have generated quite a few frustrated comments and e-mails. The response is always, "Yes, but..." As in, "Yes, but you don't understand that in my case, it was justified." And like I said, there are a few justifiable cases. But not many.

There is, of course, an underlying reason why people instinctively think that seeking out a church that meets all their felt needs is a God-given right. And it has to do with consumerism and the aforementioned market economy. Most Americans simply cannot conceive of the idea of not being able to choose their church the way they do their cell phone plan or where they'll get tonight's take-out. But think about what that mindset does to the Bride of Christ: it turns her into a cheap prostitute, who peddles her wares on street corners in the hopes that you'll condescend to choose her over all her similarly cheap competitors.

If you want to do something truly radical for Jesus (and 'radical' is a relative term in our historically weak era), commit to his bride the way you did to your own bride or groom on your wedding day. Stay with her through thick and thin. Help your fellow brothers and sisters there to grow in discipleship. And whenever you get mad at some perceived slight in your church, realize that you are committed to that community in such a way that you are called to reconciliation rather than self-chosen alienation.

Meaning of Church Membership

There are a number of posts up on several blogs I read having to do with the meaning of membership in the church. I'm not sure if this is all coincidental, or whether there is rather some story or event I have missed. At any rate, I have also just finished a column on the meaning of church membership for the United Methodist Reporter. I'll link to that when it comes out.

In the mean time, here is a summary of several posts that are worth checking out:

On his Accountable Discipleship blog, Steve Manskar posts about the way we often treat church membership as membership in a civic club (and how at odds that is with an understanding of the church as the body of Christ).

Amy Forbus posted on the Methoblog on the way that an 'open door' membership attitude allows for easy exiting as well as easy joining.

Also on the Methoblog, Jay Voorhees has posted on membership as it relates to the deep longing for family, as well as the vows of membership as similar to marriage vows (I agree with him strongly on this count).

(Both Amy's and Jay's posts are drawn from still other blogs, to which they link, and those are worth a look as well.)

Matthew Johnson has an excellent post on pastoral responsibility in helping determine readiness for church membership, something that most pastors are probably to intimidated (and too eager for new members) to do.

And Gavin Richardson quotes himself on the nature of the church: "At its best the church is a family, at its worst the church is a family."

My own column, which I'm tentatively calling, "Cheating on your church," focuses on the implied seriousness of our vows of church membership as well as the poverty of contemporary church life today. It is that deep poverty that keeps people from understanding the meaning of membership in Christ's body. The church's failure to truly be the community of Jesus' friends leads to a situation where people treat church as any other consumer choice. And that causes them to make terrible choices both for the church and for their own discipleship. As I argue in the article, leaving your church for reasons of personal preference is nothing more than a form of ecclesial adultery.

Choosing your Church

My latest column in the UM Reporter is on the "Country Club Commitment" that so many of us make to our churches.

Choosing the church you attend is one of the hallmarks of American Christianity. Since competition among Protestant denominations has been going on since the founding of the country (a feature of national life supported by the lack of an established religion), the denominational smorgasbord that we have now is the natural result of a 230-year old process.

Here's the bad news: It might also be the single biggest factor working against your ability to become a real disciple of Jesus Christ.

Why?

Because in our culture, the number and variety of churches resembles the number and variety of fast-food restaurants or department stores. And since we live in a world that teaches us that we deserve to choose, and choose again, until we find the "product" that suits us best, we tend to treat the church the same way we treat any other consumer choice.

This has a lot to do with American culture. It has nothing to do with discipleship. And if we cannot be real disciples of Jesus, then we cannot come to know God. And if we do not come to know God, then we will never have a place in God's kingdom.

So have you ever thought that the issue of "church choice" could have a bearing on your salvation? It very well may.

Quiet desperation

Our generation has a crisis of 'meaning.'

That is, we have become confused about where we should find meaning in our lives.

If you ask people, they will say that they find meaning in life in all sorts of ways - their families, their faith, their jobs, their hobbies, and their recreational interests, etc.

And on the surface, that is true. But our culture (and by that I mean 'consumer culture,' roughly understood) teaches us to find meaning in purely market-driven, materialistic ways. We are told that our happiness is directly connected to what we have the ability to purchase. Meaning is equivalent to the acquisition of certain commodities.

And this is more than just a straightforward process of the advertising industry convincing a consumer to buy a certain product. It is rather the culture that has developed where we are encouraged to constantly spend in order to consume, consume in order to spend more, and keep a wary eye on our neighbor to find out what we should be consuming next.

In this environment, a man's insistence that he finds meaning in his family is corrupted by the market's definition of how that meaning is construed. His understanding of value in the family is tied directly to the home he has bought, the car he drives, the vacation he is able to take, and the entertainment system he is able to purchase. The accoutrements surrounding the family thus become the litmus test of the family's 'success' or level of happiness.

I think Gen X'ers instinctively realize that there is something deeply flawed about this market-driven, consumerist value system. But because we are immersed in it all day, everyday, we don't always know how to escape. To fight misery, we adopt a number of different strategies. One is to surrender to the system, attempting to lose yourself in complete and total participation in it. Another is to find a chemical release, through alcohol, illicit drugs, or prescription drugs. Both approaches are attempts to avoid the deep spiritual illness that results from trying to find meaning in an ultimately meaningless system.

Where should we find meaning, then? Scripture is clear that the only proper locus of meaning is love. It is love of God, who has created us and desires our full redemption. And it is love of our neighbor, who reflects the very image of God to us. When the church is living as the church should, it is the place where we can learn about that love.

I know some of you might be rolling your eyes right now. Just another preacher who says that Jesus is the cure for everything. But look, we've all found ourselves staring obsessively at ads on television, salivating in some store at a shopping mall, and preoccupied with the idea of purchasing this or that product (which, of course, we really do not need).

When that happens, haven't you ever felt a vague sense of unease in your gut? And doesn't living in a world where you are manipulated into situations like that leave you feeling just a little like something is very, very wrong?

I write about this reality in my column this week. I welcome your thoughts.

Remember Who You Are

Of the many obsessions that are rampant in our culture, one of the most widespread is the "hunger for the new." We live in a consumer culture, where the messages that we are bombarded with everyday all try to convince us that newer is better. After all, Ford and GM aren't going to sell a lot of 2007 models if they can't convince us that they are better than the 2006 versions. And Burger King's profit margin is dependent on their ability to convince us that their new, high-fat, calorie-laden 'value meal' is better than the equivalent at McDonald's and Wendy's.

So what kind of 'value' does this kind of message really get us? A number of things in my life lately have convinced me that I have been completely manipulated by our culture's hunger for the new. And I want to make a change in my life, so that I am listening to God more and to the culture less. We all chase after false idols at times, but I think I have finally figured out that the most dangerous ones are the ones you don't realize are idols. God has given me a number of 'aha' moments lately that have helped me start to locate some of those hidden idols in my own life. And I think the consumerist fetish with newness, novelty, and innovation is behind most of them.

I write about this in my column in the Reporter this week. I know that this is only the beginning of my wrestling with this issue. But the first step I am taking is to look behind in order to look ahead. This world will keep us distracted for our entire lives if we let it. To keep that from happening, we need to dive into the wisdom that the church is offering us - a wisdom built up over the course of 20 centuries. I think it's a heck of a better 'value' than anything the world has to offer.