It’s easy to take pot shots at mega-churches, especially if you’re not being paid by one. But I recently came across several things in the blogosphere that made me stop and think. And I share them with you, to make you do the same.
Ernest, at Missions Misunderstood, has been working through a comparison between the coffee franchising enterprise and mega-churches and he pulls no punches. He says that the “It doesn’t matter if you’re selling widgets, coffee, or Jesus,
the principles are the same; you convince people to buy whatever it is
you’re selling, and then you try to hang on to your clients by
continuing to sell them more. But what happens when people realize that
they can make even better coffee at home for a lot less than Starbucks?
What happens when people realize that their small group (which is a
ministry of a megachurch) is actually a church and that all the other
stuff is unnecessary?

“Starbucks may or may not realize this, but people don’t go to
Starbucks for the coffee. They go for the comforting sense of
belonging. A customer may not speak to a soul during her visit, but
something about that familiar space- people working away on laptops,
reading the newspaper, sipping their coffee- makes one feel at home. I may not talk to anyone in the shop, but I could.
People enjoy assuming that the other customers and I are the same. The
same goes for the megachurch. The seeker sensitive movement understands
that people like the feeling of belonging, especially if they don’t
actually have to do anything to get that feeling.

“The comfortable chairs and the little round tables make a promise that
Starbucks can’t (and never intended to) keep. The appearance of
community is not the same as actual community. The baristas may call
out your name when your order is ready, but they don’t know you. The
other people in the shop, they want you to leave so they can plug in
their laptops and work in peace. There’s a sense of entitlement that
comes with participating in a program that’s specifically aimed at you.
The greeters at the door of the megachurch probably won’t remember your
name either. Programs don’t build community, they build consumerism.”

There is a methodological argument at play here that probably only the ‘professional’ christians think about. But methodology is important, especially if there is no such thing as ‘professional christians’.

I have a lot of friends back in the States at the moment trying to raise funds to get to their respective ‘field.’ With all support-based missions, this can be a very difficult thing, especially if the home country is in a financial crisis. To this, David Fitch asks two questions: 1) Can we “expect the churches of undisciplined desire (my nomenclature for late-
American evangelicalism) to provide the moral or material capital for
world mission?” His argument is that “American churches and mission organizations need to rethink America as a
Mission-sending country which is itself a mission field and we must take our place alongside all other countries as mutual participants in the Mission of God.” and 2) “Has our over confident faith and trust in market capitalism influenced the way we
organize ourselves socially and economically even among the people of
God?” His questions are in response to a recent article in der Spiegel.

I think Fitch’s questions here are good ones, however, do they promote the kind of fear that paralyzes or do they actually mobilize us to action? Again, at my other post below, in times like these, I recommend books like Bader-Saye’s Following Jesus in a Culture of Fear.