The American landscape is dotted with churchless Christianity. Church has been reduced to a weekly event, even a religious institution. Instead of being the church, we have fallen into merely doing church, and far too often our doing is disconnected from being. Church has devolved from Gospel-centered community into man-centered institutions or events that look more like: shopping malls, fortresses, and cemeteries. These aberrations contribute to the confusion regarding “church†in America. In order to better understand Gospel community, it is important that we first understand its abberations.
Shopping Mall Churches
Shopping mall churches dress up the gospel in cultural clothing, dress down the message of Jesus, and try to lure consumers in with their spiritual package—a Sunday “experience.†Every time I drive to Dallas, Texas I pass a church that boldly advertises their Sunday package at the low price of thirty minutes. Their banner reads: “30 Minute Worship. This innovative service is for anybody who is tired of the way traditional church has been done, has limited time, or has to work Sundays. The high energy, focused package will creatively engage you to personally connect with God.â€
How creative and personally connected can you get to God in thirty minutes? We’ve all had a conversation with the person who watches the clock closely. They constantly check their phone during the conversation. Towards the end of the meeting they flinch, shake, or tap some part of their body repeatedly. You feel unwanted, not “personally connected.†Consumer church cuts the relationship with God and one another right out of Christianity replacing it with a spiritual product. It can’t even get its one-third of the gospel right, never mind the other two-thirds, which include community and mission!
Fortress Churches
Fortress churches also distort the gospel. They build their doctrinal towers nice and high, hide behind the walls that separate them from the city, and launch grenades of truth into “the cultureâ€, hoping to scare a few pagans into the safety of their walls. Sometimes the walls these churches erect aren’t doctrinal but moral. They insist on certain level of perceptible morality before allowing the outsiders inside the church. One of my favorite examples of the fortress mentality comes from the church sign down the street from my house. Marking each season with a “gospel messageâ€, they greet the city in the Spring by posting: “Spring is God’s greeting card.†Fine enough. But in Texas, Spring is quickly followed by a long, hot summer, to which they respond: “You think it’s hot out there?†Comforting. Fortress churches cut grace right out of the gospel by insisting we get our morality or doctrine straight before joining the church or we will end up in hell.
Cemetery Churches
Then there are the cemetery churches. The ones that have died. Well, they are alive but they aren’t. It’s difficult to find a pulse. A wandering soul walks into the Sunday service of cemetery church only to be confronted with lifeless, joyless Christianity, a kind of dried up religious community that simply goes through the motions. Church growth isn’t even on the radar. Mission has been reduced to church survival. It’s hard to believe in the Jesus who promised “life abundantly†when you encounter a church that has more in common with zombies than with disciples of Jesus. The fortress church cuts the heart right out of Christianity and replaces it with dead, lifeless religion.
Shopping mall, fortress, and cemetery churches are consumerist, doctrinaire, lifeless institutions that lack Jesus-centered missional community. Why this gross distortion of the church? There are far too many reasons to discuss here, but a fundamental reason is that a one-third Gospel characterizes Christianity in America. This one-third gospel is hardly the Gospel of Christ at all. It focuses on Jesus’ death and resurrection as a product to be sold, a doctrine to be believed, or a religion to be practiced. This one-third gospel is not only incomplete but also contaminated, polluted with the garbage of consumerism, individualism, and religion. Before we can press into the other “two-thirds†of the gospel, we need to get the “one-third†right.
*This is an excerpt from my forthcoming booklet: Gospel-centered Missional Community.