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Getting Beyond Consumer-Christianity
A Church in the Vanguard: The Thessalonians
1 Thessalonians 1:1-10
I recently had an opportunity to experience Northeast Ohio’s latest shopping phenomenon,
Legacy Village in Lyndhurst. It was truly amazing—the latest venture in our continuing fascination with consumerism in America. It was basically a very upscale mall, but designed like a little village, with quaint streets and nice sidewalks (which will be heated during the winter). Stores like
Crate and Barrel (the first in Ohio) were there, as were unique stores like the huge sports store complete with a four-story high climbing wall.
The Cheesecake Factory was there along with several other rather nice restaurants. As soon as it opened, it became the Jerusalem or Mecca for shoppers, making their pilgrimage to the latest shrine of consumerism.
As we were arriving, we walked alongside the very nicely designed buildings, looking up at the attention to detail.
Somebody joked that their new church building was designed based on the elaborate model before us. We all laughed, knowing that we could never afford the designers that put this incredible thing up.
But hidden in that comment was something very real and disturbing: have we in the church been sucked into a
consumerism approach to ministry?
Have we redefined “church” as a consumer-friendly building, consumer-friendly programs, consumer-friendly preaching, consumer-friendly activities?
What comes to mind when we think about the key terms in our lives may be the most important thing about us. Stop for a moment and think of that word: “Church.”
Before you have a chance to correct yourself, what first flew into your mind when I said that word—“Church”?
Here is one of the most striking facts about church in the New Testament:
There is not one verse that says, “they went to church.”
In fact, according to the Bible, you cannot “go to church.” If you woke up this morning and said, “I’m going to church,” you would have made a theologically incorrect statement.
In spite of what we have made “church” in the modern world, it is not the building, nor is it the meeting. Look at what it looked like in the first century:
“On arriving there, they gathered the church together and reported all that God had done through them and how he had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.” (Acts 14:27)
According to the Bible, the church is the People of God who gather together with a sense of mission—“the church” “gathered together” and reported “all that God had done through them” in helping people cross the threshold of faith in God.
Naturally, in our day, the first thing that comes into most of our heads when we think of “church” is the Sunday meeting during which the pastor speaks, the worship team plays songs, the kids attend Sunday School, and the offering is taken. After that is over, we go home from church.
But I think you’ll agree that according to the Bible, we can’t go to church, because we
are the church! Why am I making a big deal out of this? Because the way we use the term “church,” I believe, is a symptom of a larger problem. We have slowly and almost imperceptibly changed the way we define the church—it is now seen from a more consumerist viewpoint. It is the place where we go to get fed. It is the place where we receive religious goods and services. It is the place I go to have my needs met through quality programs. It is the place where the specialists teach our children about God.
And so, with that mentality, we naturally start “shopping” for a church. And if we can’t find the spiritual equivalent of Legacy Village in this church or that church, we will go elsewhere.
Darrell Gruder wrote (in his book
Missional Church), “Popular grammar captures it well: you ‘go to church,’ much as the way you go to the store. You ‘attend’ a church, the way you attend a school or theater. You ‘belong to a church,’ much as you would a service club with its programs and activities…In North America, this ‘place where’ orientation manifests itself in a particular form. Both members and those outside the church expect the church to be a vendor of religious services and goods.”
Could we have succumbed to this warped view of church? Erwin McManus writes (in his book
An Unstoppable Force),
“‘We’re looking for a church that meets our needs.’ It seems like I’ve heard this one a thousand times. The phenomenon of church shoppers has profoundly shaped the contemporary church. The entire conversation is not about relevance but convenience. The focus is not in serving the world; the church itself is the focal point. Our motto degenerated from ‘We are the church, here to serve the lost and broken world’ to ‘What does this church have to offer me?’”
Now, before I come across a blaming everybody else for this awful situation, I want you to know that I believe that the fault for this is squarely on the shoulders of us church leaders. We have focused more on programs and marketing and not on the
mission of the church. We are the ones who have allowed the church to be defined by our programs rather than on what the church is supposed to be defined by.
 In a helpful diagram that Dan Kimball supplies in his excellent book
The Emerging Church, we see that the Consumer Church (the “I go to church” mindset) is different from the biblical model of church—the “Missional Church,” where
“church is seen as a body of people sent on a mission who gather in community for worship, encouragement, and teaching from the Word that supplements what they are feeding themselves throughout the week.”
In the opening chapter of Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians, we see a great example of what a church is supposed to be. Not a building, not a place where you attend and receive goods and services, but the People of God, living out their faith in authentic and powerful ways.
If we are going to shift away from being the Consumer Church back toward the Missional Church, then we can learn a lot from what Paul says about these Thessalonians.
Look at this passage:
1Paul, Silas and Timothy,
To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:
Grace and peace to you.
2We always thank God for all of you, mentioning you in our prayers. 3We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
4For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, 5because our gospel came to you not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction. You know how we lived among you for your sake. 6You became imitators of us and of the Lord; in spite of severe suffering, you welcomed the message with the joy given by the Holy Spirit. 7And so you became a model to all the believers in Macedonia and Achaia. 8The Lord’s message rang out from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia—your faith in God has become known everywhere. Therefore we do not need to say anything about it, 9for they themselves report what kind of reception you gave us. They tell how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, 10and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath.
Let me highlight a few things about the Thessalonian church that showed that they were successful at being the church. We in the modern church measure our success by the three Big B’s—(buildings, budgets, and bodies). But the true measure of church must reflect this passage.
1. They accepted the gospel because God’s love had the power to allow them to know that what they were hearing was true (vv. 4-5)
It all starts with conversion. God’s love breaks through our hard hearts and gives us the ability to hear people when they lovingly tell us about the love of Jesus Christ. We no longer scoff it off as silliness, but as truth with conviction—for we begin to see that these Christians truly live out their lives with authenticity. They are not “putting on a show,” they are struggling through life just as I am, but with a genuine strength and hope that comes from their faith in Jesus Christ.
2. Their faith produced work, their love produced labor, their hope inspired endurance (vv. 3, 6)
Authentic faith that is the greatest testimony to an unbelieving world is not merely a “said faith” but a “doing faith.” The faith of these people has changed the way they live. They work and labor for the sake of those around them. And they endure hardship because of the hope that they possess. They don’t just tell people about the gospel, they live it out. They practically show that God is love by the things that they
do—they help the poor, they go out of their way to serve their neighbors and co-workers, they live outside themselves
in the midst of a world of people that merely live inside themselves. To a world that says, “Show me you love me before you tell me you love me,” their actions speak loud and clear.
3. They became a model of what authentic Christianity looks like for others (v. 7)
When other Christians look for examples of Christianity, they looked to the Thessalonians. They were not known for building a big, beautiful church building, they were not known for their huge Youth Program, they were not known for their awesome multi-media worship experience, they were not known for the preacher’s fascinating use of PowerPoint. They were known because they were living as the genuine church: loving people, serving people, sharing with people the story of how God changed their lives. They were a model of what Christianity is
supposed to be.
4. Their mission and message rang out as their faith became known everywhere (v. 8)
What became “known everywhere” was their faith. Not their programs, not their religious goods and services. They shared with people the deep impact of their faith on their lives.
5. Their mission and message were clear to everyone (vv. 9-10):
They were not trained in giving a canned gospel presentation. They simply won the right to be heard through their love and work for the sake of people, then they simply told the people their own personal story of how God had changed their lives for the better. They had
turned from the traps of this world and turned instead toward the One all-satisfying God, and they were
living in the hope of Jesus Christ even in a hard and difficult world. That was their message—a personal story that others found intriguing because it was authentic and truly experienced by them. The Thessalonians’ “apologetic” was their lives. Their gospel presentation was their personal stories. They were simply inviting anyone and everyone to join them in the experience.
If we start defining “church” biblically again, we will begin to see each one of us as part of the greater mission and purpose. We will see that we have a part in God’s bigger story that he is writing as we live it.
What is the “church?” The church is God’s instrument through which his Holy Spirit moves and expresses his love, proclaiming the ‘good news’ that Jesus is redeeming the world to come under his kingdom.
WE are the church! The church is God continuing to live and work in this world through us. When we see the church that way, the focus moves off of ourselves and we break out of the consumer mindset.
We move FROM “I go to church,”
TO “We are the church.”
FROM “The pastor feeds me Scripture,”
TO “The pastor teaches me how to feed myself Scripture.”
FROM “The pastor represents the church,”
TO “I am one of Christ’s ambassadors.”
FROM “The church teaches my children about God,”
TO “I lead my family to love God, the church partners with me.”
FROM “Missions is a department in the church,”
TO “I am prayerfully and intimately involved in the mission of the church.”
FROM “Church is an institution,”
TO “Church is a living organism—a family, a body.”
FROM “Big programs and productions,”
TO “Equipping people to serve in the community mission.”
FROM “Care for our wants and needs,”
TO “Care for the needy and the oppressed in this world because of the mission.”
FROM “Focus on the members of the church—what will make them happy?
TO “Focus on God—finding our satisfaction and joy in Him and His purposes.”
We have an opportunity unique to all new church plants of the 21st Century. We can release the baggage of the 20th Century and re-imagine the church better along the model of the Thessalonians. Since we started from scratch and do not have decades worth of “we always did things this way,” we can retell the story of the church so that people will realize that the church is not some store to purchase religious goods and services.
Instead, we can invite people to get out of being a part of the problem and join in being part of the solution. We can rightly invite people out of lives trapped by the idols of this world and into a dynamic relationship with the God who will place them right smack in the middle of his mission to change the world!
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