Well it’s that time of year again. It’s the season affectionately known as ‘church-shopping’ time. It occurs every year in the early Fall, though the actual start-date tends to vary. It always commences with an email or a phone call that begins with the request, "So tell me about your church…" I then gladly recount for them a bit about our mission and ministry, pause and then wait for the hammer to drop. "So what is it," they ask, "about your church that would make me want to come?" [I can hear their pen poised to mark my answer on their now-smudged Yellow Pages.] The conversation that ensues is usually where the fundamental problem with ‘church-shopping’ rears its ugly head.
1.) People have unrealistic expectations about church . If a person came to me for premarital wedding counseling and thought that marriage and starting a family involved nothing but unceasing harmony, the selfless devotion of kids to their parents, constant romance, total support and a bond of togetherness for all involved every single day, I’d be extremely worried. People who hold totally unrealistic expectations are always disappointed. Yet that is exactly what most people expect of a church. Upon strolling in, they seem to be convinced, they will have such a profound religious experience that their life will immediately be changed, their questions answered, their deepest longings satisfied, and all of their ‘worship preferences’ (!) perfectly matched right down to the last detail.
To offset this, I try to explain to them that a church is like a garden, a garden of God’s grace, in which you may feast forever on a variety of good and nourishing foods. And that while you can certainly expect to get a good batch of fresh and juicy sweet corn, that doesn’t mean that you’ll never smell some manure at times. The church – just like a garden – is something that is both holy and a holy mess.
2.) People come to church primarily to meet their personal desires . The Christian church – when it is truly being the church – does not primarily exist to satisfy people’s personal desires. Instead, it is a community where the possibility of being transformed is made real as people fully enter into the joys and sorrows of each others’ lives. That means sometimes people have to be open, receptive and considerate of how other people feel. [The terrible irony is that people who run their lives according to their own feelings and desires almost always walk all over other people's feelings and desires.] Church runs completely counter to the ‘if it feels good, then I’ll do it’ mentality our culture so often promotes. Hopefully people do find some needs and desires met, but that is not the primary purpose of church.
3.) The beauty, significance and wonder of being part of a community of faith is a total mystery . Why a bunch of people would bother to strive together to love, forgive, work and serve others in a spirit of compassion doesn’t make a lick of sense from the outside. It’s beyond comprehension why people would seek to try to live in a Christ-like way. You can’t explain it rationally. It’s a mystery how the call to be part of a church occurs and how personal transformation happens. There’s no other place that actually encourages you to stop life (at least once a week) and give thanks together for the blessings of life.
There is, of course, nothing wrong in looking at different churches for a place to call home. But it sure seems that people will be better served if they actually knew what they should and shouldn’t be looking for in a church. So if you have some friends who are out there ‘church-shopping,’ please help them out. Let them know that rather than simply looking for a perfect place that meets all their needs, that they might be encourages to find a place that challenges and encourages them to grow in unique and diverse ways.
