I am a pastor at 
I was thinking Sunday morning as I was getting ready for church. I do that sometimes… think, that is. Anyways, we’ve had a number of new people visiting our community recently. There is a general theme going on with their story. Many of these folk have come from either not being in church for a long period of time or suffering (their words) through being part of a church that is not very life-giving.
At The Well, we typically do a great job of scaring off chronic church hoppers because we’re a little, uh… different. If our ugly warehouse doesn’t care them off, something else is bound to. But, when people who are Christians come into our community, we want to be sure to let them know that we’re passionate about the unity of the body of Christ. So, we strongly urge them to be sure that they are not leaving their old church on bad terms and if they are, they really should get things right before they move on, whether its with us or with another church. If it seems like someone is running from conflict or something else, this is a problem.
Another thing that I try and say up front is that we’re not desperate for new members. We don’t “need” them as part of our community for our ego, growth, size or even our budget. We are passionate about seeing people become part of our community who are passionate about the gospel and serving God where He has them.
This gets me to the point of this post. Someone in at The Well said recently that “you can’t consume community.” I think that’s true. New people learn quick (at least I hope they do) that if you are going to be part of The Well, we’re not going to live out your faith for you. Our goal is not to make your spiritual walk easy with a bunch of prefabbed programs. If you want to get involved in what God is doing here, or you see an area that we can grow as a community, you are likely an important part of the solution! You can’t come to The Well with a consumer mindset or you won’t be happy for too long. Of course, this doesn’t mean we won’t do our best to walk alongside you. But we’re not going walk for you…
Of course there is another side to this. I think some churches are consuming churches. Growing up, I was in church on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and twice on Sunday. Now I don’t actually want to be too negative on my church that I grew up in. I loved that church experience. I learned of God’s love there and it it was full of amazing of people. But, the fact is, the church ruled my life. I was always at church events. We were a heavily programmed church and as a result, I was very rarely “out” in the world relating to anyone who wasn’t a Christian (its a good thing I was in public school so I could at least relate to the world a little bit). In a sense, the church consumed me. (Which, ironically taught me to be a consuming christian. Consuming all the programs and all the services that they offered me. It could be argued that even consuming opportunities to serve.
Here’s the problem. When two things consume each other…one of them has to die. Right? When two animals fight, one consumes the other. They are either both desperately wounded or one of them wins.
I wonder if this is what happens to many of the people who end up leaving larger, consumer driven churches. The people who are really good at consuming get by and make it. But the ones who are willing to serve and really want to give end up getting consumed…
Thoughts?
(Note, I am not willing to say that large chuches are evil, they just have this big challenge to deal with. Small churches have their own challenges to deal with).
Tim Etherington said...
1Todd, my first reaction when reading this was to plan on taking a long weekend and visiting The Well. :)
Short of that, I’m curious. You said New people learn quick (at least I hope they do) that if you are going to be part of The Well, we’re not going to live out your faith for you. What does that look like? If you get a couple who show up and they like the music and the preaching but they don’t “plug in” (I am not fond of that term) and just show up on Sunday mornings, what do you do? How would they either be moved to engage or to just move on?
Just to be clear: I’m not doubting this, I’m curious what it looks like.
05/5/08 5:15 AM | Comment Link
Todd said...
2Tim, feel free to come on out. Just don’t consume.. :) ha!
seriously though, i think the biggest thing that helps people learn this is that we aren’t heavily programmed.
If you want to become part of the community a) it just takes time b) you have to take a little initiative or at least accept an invitation when someone offers it (which we can always get better at).
Also, another thing is that we try and constantly invite people to participation in what God is calling them to inside and outside of our community. Our constant challenge is shaping people who are able to hear and respond to that call.
I hate the term getting “plugged in” too. In fact, i really hate it. A community is not some machine you can plug-into. Its a living, move organism. In fact, isn’t the term plugged in a very consumer driven term? When you plug into something, its either using you or you are using it.
Tim Keel had some great thoughts on the time it take to become part of a community and the idea of “plugged-in.” I blogged about it here.. http://www.toddhiestand.com/are-you-plugged-in/11/
05/5/08 5:26 AM | Comment Link
john chandler said...
3Thanks Todd,
I appreciate the heart of what you get at here…hope it’s something we can capture as well. So the first step is to get a cold, dank warehouse, right?
05/5/08 6:32 AM | Comment Link
Todd said...
4Yes John. that is exactly right. that’s the key to a good church.
Just make sure that you have a train that sometimes blares its horn during the service, a loud AC unit inside your building, industrial headers with loud fans, and an ambulance company on the other side of your wall that likes to watch movies really, really loudly…
you have that and you have yourself an amazing church…
05/5/08 6:58 AM | Comment Link
Mike K said...
5The large consumer-driven churches are becoming places where I find folks are becoming more and more dissatisfied. And because these churches are mostly consumer-driven, when the consumer becomes dissastified, he/she goes somewhere else.
But I think if you look deeper into what makes some of these folks feel dissatisfied, you might find that this dissatisfaction may not be because their consumer needs are not met. Some folks are saying “something is wrong” from a deeper spiritual level that is not driven by consumer needs.
Go I guess my point is…is that when folks come to visit The Well who seem disaffected by the current church models don’t assume that they are wanting to leave because they are miffed because they don’t like the music, the preaching, the lighting, or the newly-installed speed bumps in the parking lot (you know I couldn’t have just made that last one up…), etc. Some may be dissatisfied, but they are looking for a place to grow into the kingdom people that they see themselves as and need to see a different model in which to make that happen. I have visited The Well and think for some folks who are of this mind, it could be the place for them.
05/6/08 11:40 AM | Comment Link
shared hearts | some strange ideas said...
6[...] The Consuming Christian and the Consuming Church (Todd Hiestand) – Todd is a good friend, and my initial connection into the Ecclesia Network. I look forward to sharing more time together in the coming years. [...]
05/12/08 9:42 AM | Comment Link