Perhaps I have somewhat of an emotional stake in this as my family struggles with a problem related to this issue, but I still don’t see why “mystery church shopper” services have to be considered as heretical from every possible angle. I’m hardly an expert among the “church growth” community, but I am the Stand-up Philosopher, so I’ll tackle the subject again and you are free to count my opinion for whatever you think it’s worth. Believe it or not, I have done some reading on church growth, and one of my pastors is considered an expert in small groups and is often brought into other churches to give a presentation and/or provide troubleshooting into problems that they might have. Having attended his small group leader training several times, I’ve picked up a few things, not enough to open my own ministry, but at least enough to feel like I can discuss the subject intelligently. Actually, I have no plans to start a ministry. The only person that I beg for money is my wife. On the subject of begging, I’m not talking about a church taking up a weekly collection. I mean that whole “We’ll send you this free book in exchange for your gift of $25 or more”. I fail to see how the book is free. Why not just sell the book?
I hardly know where to begin in this writing. I came across a Christianity Today article, which can be found here, that just about blew my top. The article was posted on December 18, 2008. Yeah, it’s taken me a long time to get this post together. I almost had it done, then thought of something else, and had to come back and rework it. The article speaks about a service called Church Check, which sounds like another mystery church shopper program like I wrote about here.
I guess I’ll start here. This is the blurb from Church Check’s website about their service:
Guest Evaluation
It’s often difficult to know what guests of your congregation think about you. Church is a place where people are kind, loving, and polite and that often keeps your guests from saying what they truly think about your congregation.
We do for you what most guests won’t, or can’t. Our experts spend some time with you during your worship service and/or Sunday School classes. We observe and identify areas that you can improve.
Afterward we sit down and write our observations out in a concise, but information-packed analysis of our visit which will allow you to make the changes you need to make to get guests to return and stay for good.
It’s a very short blurb. I don’t see anything in it about “We can help you improve your heretical mega-church image by showing you have to soften the Gospel of Jesus Christ into an unrecognizable form that is appealing to everybody, so everybody will want to come to your church. We’ll show you where your church has any teachings of substance and help you to erase them. We’ll turn your worship services into an amusement park with lots of lights and rock music.” I didn’t see it in there, but the article on Christianity today almost seemed to assume that:
Why would a church—a place that is supposed to be characterized by genuineness and humility—ask a group of "savvy professionals" to help it? Isn't there something in the New Testament about the gospel subverting the wisdom of the wise? Is it possible for "savvy professionals" to understand what a church is really about?
Here’s my take on this: a church, among any other group, should be totally aware of the fact that “All have sinned, and fall short of the glory of God” Rom 3:23. Why should a church, of any human organization, find itself above accountability? I’ve said before that the biggest problem with the church is that it lets people like me in. It also lets in people like you, and your most annoying coworkers and family members. It’s an organization that the largest requirement for membership is to be totally unworthy of belonging in the first place. Once those unworthy people join the church, hopefully through repentance and baptism and a newfound joy to serve their redeemer, they then do what humans tend to do: form cliques and repeat the same rituals week after week after week. Hopefully they do go out into the world to take the Gospel (along with food and assistance) to the poor and downtrodden, but within the church building, it’s ritual city. We open with a prayer, sing 3 songs, have another prayer, have communion, sing another song, have a 20 minute sermon, sing 3 more songs, have another prayer, and dismiss. We’ll also claim that the Apostle Paul laid this exact format out somewhere in his epistles. Obviously, other churches, even within our same tribe, have their own rituals which they can trace to the exact some source. Among other things, we form rituals like potlucks. I remember hearing somebody (I think it was Albert Mohler) say that in grade school, he had to bring something in for show and tell about his religion. Being a Baptist, he brought a casserole dish.
Another problem I have with the paragraph from Christianity Today is that it seems to assume that these “savvy professionals” are not knowledgeable of how a church should operate within a Biblical context. It assumes that their knowledge, experience, and training are already off base before the service contract is signed, although I can find nothing but assumptions on the CT author’s part to back that up. Church Check doesn’t seem to offer any direct verbiage from which Mark Galli, the CT author, drew his assumptions.
From Church Check’s About Us page, I can see where Mark Galli’s biggest problem comes from:
Americans are getting less and less dogmatic about their religion and it’s becoming more difficult for churches to keep their guests. Recent studies show that 66% of Americans with church affiliations believe that many religions can lead to eternal life. 68% believe that there is more than one way to interpret the teachings of their religion.
Church-goers’ belief in and concept of God is changing too. Of those affiliated with a church in America, 92% believe in God, but only 60% believe in a personal God. A full 25% of Americans affiliated with a church consider God an impersonal force.
Statistics like this show that more than ever, Americans have no problem with church-shopping, or leaving their current congregation and moving on to another.
As much as it sucks to admit, the above paragraphs are true, or at least backed up by statistical analysis. But again, where is the “We’ll show you how to get people in the door like they’re lining up for coffee at Wawa because you’ll be watering down God’s Word with our help!” I don’t see that in there. It can only be drawn out by an assumption or a preconceived notion.
If you’ve read the CT article, can you tell me one thing that is missing? Go on, I’ll wait. Can’t see it? OK, here it is: does this article show any evidence that the author attempted to contact Church Check for comment? As I understand it, in journalism, when you’re going to decimate somebody in print, it’s ethical to at least contact them for comment. If Time Magazine were going to write a story about me, say “Idiot blogger won’t shut up!”, they’d at least send me a copy of the story to ask if I have any comments or clarifications. I honestly don’t see much of that in Christian type circles. When Rick Warren’s “The Purpose Driven Life” was all the rage (I have an untouched copy on my shelf; I promise I’ll give it an honest read) I read all kinds of books and articles and listened to sermons about how heretical it is, and how his approach is going to lead people to Hell. I noticed that nobody ever seemed to attempt to reach Rick Warren for comment though. Nobody tried to get his clarification. Why do Christians seem to assume that they’re above accountability?
It’s occurred to me that if I had more time, I could do Mr. Galli’s job for him. I could forward a link to his article to Church Check and ask them for comment. I could ask them what services they provide, what a typical visit is like and if possible, could I get some randomized data or a report issued to one of their customers? What do the customers who hire them look for, or want reported back on? I think only after that would I have enough information to either decide that this is a decent service or a “Ladiocian Heresy”. If I had the time, I might even ask if I could accompany their team on a visit. Isn’t that what journalists do? I could also attempt to get opinions from experts, like my pastor. Then I could post it here on my blog, or try to submit it to a publication and attempt to earn some money and generate some freelance business. I should probably ask them what background their teams have, and what qualifications a person would need to have to be a part of Church Check. There wasn’t enough information in Mark Galli’s article from which to draw a conclusion about any of that.
So in any case, again, why should a church, an organization made up of people who know they’re fallen and imperfect, believe that they should be above accountability? Any church that wants to attract new members (and why is this always assumed to be a bad thing?) probably would like to get an objective overview of how their worship service goes.
I’ve said before, I do not believe in a “seeker sensitive church”. The church darn well should be open and welcoming to anybody, but the congregational meeting is
supposed to be a gathering of believers. That gathering is supposed to do many things, including teach, edify, and exhort those believers. Oh, yeah, the “New Testament Church” also ate a lot, you know, breaking bread from house to house and all that… There should be lots of good food, physical and spiritual. I don’t like church services that do nothing more than feed spiritual milk week after week. There is so much in the Bible that we can talk about, so I have no idea why we tend to limit ourselves to such a small section, then complain that the average Christian doesn’t know anything. Well, duh… Obviously, the people doing the most complaining about that also seem to be doing the least to fix the “problem”, but I guess that isn’t very charitable of me to say.
OK, so there are church growth consulting services, and I don’t believe the concept is entirely heretical. I honestly believe that most churches could benefit from this. Now I’m obviously not familiar with what services are actually offered, but until I hear otherwise, it seems logical to assume there may be a practical and Biblical use for them. I don’t see anything wrong with “church growth” on the surface. What church in it’s right mind would not want to grow? How many churches have a mission or vision statement that says “We aim to hold steady with 25 dedicated men and women among our fellowship. All others will be told to worship elsewhere”? Seriously. It’s a simple matter of economics. By myself, I can’t really do much, but in a gathering of people giving generously, I can impact the world through supporting missionaries and all kinds of ministries. Gathering together and pooling resources and gifts is an effective way to serve God, which seems to be why he gives different spiritual gifts to different people. I’m an egghead. I get excited studying theology, philosophy, and history and teaching them. My wife has a gift for organization. She’s done wonders in the church pantry. There is no way she’d want to teach an expositional class on the Bible, which is what I enjoy. If they told me my job was to organize the pantry, or teach 2 year olds, I would have left the church long ago. That’s why we have different gifts and abilities. One of our deacons is especially gifted in running a homeless ministry. We have people in our church who are good at all kinds of things that I have no interest in. By pooling our abilities and pooling the offering plate, we can do so much more than as individuals.
I also want to add that there is more to a church than solid teaching. Even in a church that does a decent job of trying to do “what the Bible says”, there are plenty of reasons why people would want to leave. Maybe the church is a little far away, and it’s hard to make friends who don’t live too far away. Maybe there are cliques that make long time members feel unwelcome. Maybe the church just shifted directions and you’re heading in a different direction. I’ve said before that my wife and I have considered leaving our church and finding another one. As an imperfect collection of people, that church does a decent job of worshipping. We’re just heading in another direction. We don’t like the rituals anymore, like the fact that they only want to sing between 12-20 songs on a regular basis. Seriously, I’ve seen us sing the same song 4 weeks in a row, and there are more than 800 songs in the hymnal. I don’t see anything wrong with the church’s rituals, I just don’t care for them anymore. I still love and respect many people in the church and if we do make the decision to leave, I hope for it to be on the best of terms and that I can maintain contact with those I love and respect.
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