Bo Chancey

In posting my thoughts on “Consumeranity”, I have wrestled with the issue a bit deeper than I originally intended.  I have written more about the idea that I do not think I will post.  Consumerism is a cultural problem that has implications on the Church.  We need to be prepared for those problems and we must diligently “re-focus” ourselves on the mission of Jesus.  That is really the only solution.  I could write all day about it, but it is just that simple.  If we give ourselves to making disciples (who love deeply & reproduce) Consumeranity doesn’t stand a chance.  I have no desire to make it more complicated than it needs to be.

I also want to be crystal clear that church buildings, programming, and gifted/charismatic leaders are not the problem.  They can reveal symptoms of the problem when they become the focus instead of the mission of Jesus.  However, they are often used effectively to carry out the mission of Jesus.  With that in mind, I feel compelled to clearly state that I do not want to “throw the baby out with the bath water” so to speak.

I have always said that I want to aggressively reach out to our lost and hurt world.  If I am going to err I want it to be on the side of being too “outwardly” focused.  I would rather risk offending the godly to reach the lost than appease the godly and lose the lost.  So there it is…we live in a culture based on consumerism and the question becomes:  “How do we engage this culture with the mission of Christ?”

Here are a few personal thoughts on church buildings, programming, and charismatic leaders.

I love church buildings.  I could spend all day walking through a church building looking at everything inside.  I like big buildings with fancy stages and tricked out children’s spaces.  I like little old-fashioned buildings with stained glass, pews, and steeples.  I love church buildings that have busy parking lots and a flurry of activity going on at all times.  I love church buildings that only have the car of the dutiful pastor in the parking lot as he faithfully works away to build the Kingdom.  I love church buildings because amazing things happen inside.  People worship, get married, mourn, celebrate, find salvation, are healed, loved, accepted, and transformed inside of church buildings.  I wish that our local church had a building to use as a resource and tool to help us in our mission of navigating people to God.

I love programming.  Programming is fun.  I enjoy thinking up new ways to “package” the message.  I love the creativity involved in programming.  I love that people serve and volunteer to effectively minister to the needs of the body and the surrounding community.  An active church is often an alive church. 

With that being said, I do in theory like the idea of simplicity in programming and understand the concepts about deciding “what not to do”.  In our church in Frisco, with limited resources (space, $$$, and people) we have to often think in very simple terms and we can feel handicapped to some degree.  I confess that I am jealous of the “larger” church’s ability to meet needs and reach people.  I also understand that our people lead overly busy lives.  They hyper-schedule and live at a frantic pace.  It seems very unhealthy and while I don’t want the church to add to that lifestyle, I wonder what we should do.  Programming with a purpose looks to work in our culture.  When challenging our people with priorities we ought to be able to communicate why involvement in their church is important…so important in fact that it needs at times to take precedence over other activities.  I don’t want to weigh the people down with religious requirements, but on the other hand I don’t want to hinder them by creating no expectations.

I see a trend where diversity of options and smaller numbers involved in individual programs may be highly impactful.  I used to think that everything we did needed to reach hundreds of people at a time, but now I see that programs that faithfully minister too and challenge 5-10 people are very powerful.  Who knows maybe the answer is less programs or maybe it is more programs…either way, it could mean less is more.

I love charismatic leaders.  In fact, I want to be one.  God uses people to lead.  He calls, equips, and expects leaders to lead within the body.  I understand the pitfalls of “idolizing” a man or sensationalizing the messenger.  When we put people on pedestals they almost always fall.  When a charismatic leader is in his proper place, using his gifts in a proper way the Kingdom grows.  I love that. 

The bottom line in all of this is that we must embrace the fact that we are not “consumers of God”, rather we are participants in His great mission.  We should use whatever tools are at our disposal to carry out that mission.  Most of all, we must guard the mission and make sure we never become about anything else.  If we do that “Consumeranity” doesn’t stand a chance…period…end of story.