THOUGHTFULLY DRIVING THE PORCELAIN BUS

A Column by John S Schroeder

September 28, 2002

The article is about so-called "mega-churches." Specifically the article is about the furor that such a church can raise in the neighborhood where it is located, and how the neighbors can do little about it because of the tax-exempt status and first amendment privileges such an institution is afforded. To give you some perspective, these churches can have attendance in excess 3,000 people on a Sunday, creating enormous traffic jams. More though, some have outdoor amphitheaters with stadium-sized sound systems capable of waking up neighbors for miles.

According to the article, the churches are belligerent to complaining neighbors, sounding quite haughty as they claim the entitlement of those on a holy mission. I was struck by the fact that while the acts of these churches are nowhere nearly as heinous as those of the 9-11 terrorists, their response to the complaints was remarkably similar. Scripture ran through my mind over and over as I read the article:

Such pomposity, while odious, is however, relatively common amongst all those with a cause of any sort. From environmentalists to the anti-abortion crowd, from fanatic Muslims to fanatic Yankees devotees, one can find such attitudes. Christianity is different from most because it contains the kind of cautions against such attitudes as I quote above, but many there are in Christianity that do not remember all the rules all the time, myself included. So, while this attitude is despicable, I would put it in the category of "routine" sin and not exceptionally worth writing about.

Another amazing issue that is raised by these situations is the problems created by such churches engaging in commercial activity. Workout centers have been in these churches for a while, but now they are offering housing and coming soon, on-campus McDonald's. At some point this just starts to stink like moneychangers at the Temple. These may legally be "non-profits" but I doubt very seriously that the IRS' definition of that term is designed to coincide with God's. I simply cannot see a morally or ethically significant difference between an in-church McDonald's and people selling sacrificial animals at usurious prices in the temple courtyard, or selling indulgences for that matter.

But, again, this is old hat in the world of sin and does not strike at the heart of the matter. The thing that I really want to write about here centers on a paragraph from the article that quotes a pastor of one of these mega-churches:

This blatant comparison of the church to standard retail activities shakes me to my very core. This comparison and subsequent model for building the church trivializes what the church has to offer. I wish I were preaching out-loud so I could shout, "IS A KNOWLEDGE OF THE SAVING GRACE OF JESUS CHRIST NO MORE THAN A PRODUCT TO BE PURCHASED? IS THE GOSPEL JUST ANOTHER TRINKET TO GET AT THE LOWEST AVAILABLE PRICE? IS THE KINGDOM OF GOD JUST ANOTHER LIFESTYLE CHOICE?" How could a man that has received ordination into the ministry of the Gospel utter such a profanity? Is there no sense of the holy? Is there nothing sacred?

Let's center our discussion of what is wrong with this viewpoint/statement on the phrase "options and prices." I have written over and over about how many of the movements in the modern church do not call us forward to maturity, or intimacy, or any number of other concepts I have used, but here it is in black and white. The mega-churches, by their own confession, are successful because they allow you to participate in church at a lower cost. Lower Cost? LOWER COST!

For starters, it cost the life of God Almighty to start the whole church thing. Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, died on a cross. That's how this started. Yes, He was resurrected, but does that somehow cheapen the cost of that death? Of course not, He still died! That which cannot die, died by choice. I cannot imagine a higher cost. I CANNOT IMAGINE A HIGHER COST! In light of such a tremendous sacrifice, how dare we have the audacity to offer some sort of "church lite" presumably for the sake of having more people come through the door?

When such a price has been paid to start the church, how can the church respond by asking less than a similar commitment from its participants? Don’t get me wrong, no one comes into the church with a full-blown commitment. People grow into their commitments to the Lord, and we all have areas where growth is required, myself included. But the church must be designed to constantly call people forward into that deeper commitment. Partial commitment is not an "option."

I understand why something like the "prices and options" attitude exists. As long as there has been a religious establishment, there have been those willing to use it for material and/or personal gain. Such corruption is as old as man.

What I do not, what I cannot, understand is why Christianity at large is embracing and mimicking this trend. All over the country, churches that are small and want to get big or churches that are shrinking, or churches that are afraid of dying are turning to "mega-churches" as the beacon to the future, the model to follow. In the end, are we so attached to our institutions that we would rather grasp corruption to save them than let them die? Is this not a form of idolatry, confusing the church with the Lord? Some have said, "we are borrowing the tools, but not the attitude." Is it not obvious from the quote that the tool is created out of and inseparable from the attitude?

Israel wanted a nation in the earthly sense, kings, palaces, armies and the like. God seemed to have something very different in mind, continually brushing aside the Israelites requests for a king. Eventually He granted their requests, and they had a brief shining moment in the sun, but soon they came to value their nation more than the God who established it and so God allowed them to be conquered and dispersed. In borrowing the form of other nations, they adopted the attitude of those nations.

There were those that saw the truth and tried to tell the people of it -- they were called prophets. Most of them met ugly ends, rejected and reviled. Increasingly, I see similarities in today's church. The religious establishment grabs at anything that can prop up the edifice, including waking neighbors and creating traffic jams on a Sunday morning. Those that would call such churches to " regard one another as more important than himself," are increasingly called "naysayers," and told they lack vision. Such people are marginalized and ostracized because they would "harm the church."

When the church has been in this place before reformation has been the answer, but one has to wonder if it is different now. The corruption is so deep, and so widespread that reformation may be insufficient, or impossible. The church seems to be so lost that it has forgotten how to look to God to find its way back -- it just keeps looking to the world. The world is now so far from and hostile to God that there seems to be no fertile ground in which the seed of the gospel can flourish. Are those of us that feel called to sanctification being set aside into a remnant? I try really hard to not look for eschatological signs all about me. Jesus said we would never know the time or the place. There are scary signs in world events now, but what really shakes me to the core is what I see happening in the church. If the end times are to come, that is the sign -- not the possibility of atomic destruction in Babylon, but the ultimate, unreformable corruption of the church.

Join me in prayer for the people of God. Lord; help us not to lose our way.

With Love,