Category: Gospel and Culture

Defective Church: A Community of Convenience

Posted on February 9, 2009

Many people in America approach “church” as a community of convenience. The Bible, however, holds out a very different concept of church, a community of grace. The community of convenience stands in the way of a community of grace. Consider some of the differences:

Community of Grace

Community of Convenience
  • Assumes Imperfection
  • Begins with Forbearance
  • Moves to Forgiveness
  • Characterized by Grace & Love
  • Assumes Perfection
  • Begins with Consumerism
  • Moves to another “Church”
  • Characterized by Convenience & Selfishness

Community of Convenience

The community of convenience assumes perfection. It confuses the church with a product or service, demanding perfect customer service from the community. This person approaches “church” as something that exists to service their personal, familial, and spiritual needs, not as a community love and serve. The COC begins with consumerism and expects to be served. It believes that the church exists for their spiritual, relational convenience. People who approach church as a COC get upset, angry, and gripe when they don’t get their spiritual or personal needs serviced. When conflict emerges the COC simply withdraws or moves on. If the spiritual customer doesn’t receive his service, get his needs met, or get the precise theological package they are looking for, they criticize the leadership, complain to others about the community, and often move down the street to another church to get their needs serviced. No wonder people aren’t “going to church.”

Community of Grace

A community of grace, however, assumes imperfection. It understands that the church is people, people who are broken, imperfect, sinful, people who will complain and hurt one another. A COG begins with forbearance, “bearing with one another in love.” It is others-oriented. It puts up with others that are different, embraces inconvenience. When conflict arises, the COG responds very differently. The COG doesn’t remain at a place of forbearance but moves to forgiveness. The COG doesn’t hold grudges but extends genuine forgiveness towards those who have hurt them.

The COG is characterized by love and grace, but the COC is characterized by selfishness and consumerism. The Church is not a community of conveniences. It does not exist for you to get served. The church is a community of grace that exists to serve one another, to bear with one another, to forgive one another, to love one another! The church is not a perfect product or service with a money back guarantee; it is a community of imperfect people clinging to a perfect Christ who are being perfected by grace.

Ken Myers: After Evangelism

Posted on February 5, 2009

Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio will be speaking on: After Evangelism: Discipleship and the Cultural Life of Churches at Gordon-Conwell’s campus in South Hamilton, Massachusetts on Tuesday, February 24, 2009. Wish I could attend. Myers is as robust cultural critic and apologist. His thoughtful Mars Hill Audio program turns out volume after volume of diverse, well-researched, and engaging interviews and theological reflection.

Here is a Description of this Event: Since pastors are eager to reach many people with the message of the Gospel, they are often encouraged to adopt conventional cultural forms so as to reach people “where they are.” But the Gospel is not just a message to be accepted, but a way of life that is often out of sync with the way of life our culture extols. In this seminar, Ken Myers will offer a framework for assessing the common cultural practices and sensibilities, arguing that discipleship requires a more prophetic stance toward the culture around us than many churches seem willing to embrace.

Specific topics include…
(1) Wise Shepherds or Winsome Cruise Directors? Lessons from Titus on Cultural Ecology
(2) Consumer Goods: How Commodification Undermines Authority
(3) Idol Pursuits: How Celebrity Corrupts Identity
(4) A Way With Words: How Aliteracy Threatens Wisdom

Speaker Information: Ken Myers is the host and producer of the MARS HILL AUDIO Journal, an audio magazine exploring the dynamics of contemporary culture. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland, where he studied film theory and criticism, and of Westminster Theological Seminary. Formerly a producer for National Public Radio, he has worked on publishing projects with Charles Colson and Richard John Neuhaus. He is the author of All God’s Children and Blue Suede Shoes: Christian and Popular Culture (Crossway, 1989), and is working on a book entitled After Evangelism: Discipleship and the Cultural Life of Churches.