Consuming Fire: Making Room for God

When I was fresh out of seminary and brand new to church meetings, I had a hard time making a distinction between the two environments. In meetings about parking lot flow and service times, my mind was always wandering off to abstract questions about how traffic and inconvenient service times prepared people for suffering.

For the first several years on the job, I often spoke these questions, completely derailing meetings and frustrating everyone around me. I”d like to think I”m better at managing my idealism now, but the truth is, in meetings about what songs we sing or what classes we offer, I am often still working out all the giant questions in my head: Why are we doing what we”re doing? Whom are we listening to as we make decisions? Whom are we turning into as we live out our different translations of church?

Wrestling with Questions
I take great comfort in knowing there are a lot of people wrestling with these questions right now. Church leaders are trying to sort out how to connect the message of God”s saving work in Jesus to the lives of people who see themselves as constant consumers.

The world is geared toward helping people make the most fashionable, efficient, cost-effective decisions possible, whether they are picking a movie, dining at a restaurant, buying clothes, or choosing a plumber. Websites, apps, and commercials put the consumer first. The consumer relishes in this power to rate experiences, comment on blogs, and to vote with their feet and their money.

So in our church meetings, we have to decide whether to cater to consumerism, fight against it, or, somehow, to redeem it.

Every church””big or small, urban or rural, modern or traditional””has some system in place to receive input about decisions. Some of these systems are formal and some are casual. People”s opinions may come through e-mails, social media, or conversations, but they always come through.

Some churches have sophisticated measuring tools to track attendance and satisfaction. More and more, churches are using surveys and consultants to listen to congregations and measure the health of the crowd. And when all the data is gathered, or when all the anecdotal evidence has been heard, church leaders must decide how to respond. To what degree should the church”s decisions reflect the opinions, preferences, and felt needs of the crowd?

For a long time, the growing trend in churches has been to try and meet these needs and improve the scores on their real or virtual comment cards. After all, most churches want to feel like they are engaging the people in their church and their community. Worship leaders want people to sing along. Preachers and teachers want to know their messages land in people”s minds and hearts. Youth pastors want kids to show up excited to be at church.

The pull to excel in ministry is strong for noble reasons. We want God”s purposes to prevail. We want to tell the story well. We want the story of the gospel to come alive in people and to be told over and over.

Learning from Jesus
There are good, healthy, theologically sound reasons for the church to address the felt needs of people in the community. When we look closely at Jesus” ministry, we see occasions when he offered the crowd exactly what they were seeking, whether it was healing, clarity, or lunch. On certain days, he let the consumers win. His words were refreshing, encouraging, affirming.

But then there were days he told them things so true they hurt. There were days he refused to answer their questions because they weren”t the right ones. There were moments he saw through their requests for healing and went right to their need for forgiveness.

He told stories about the world around them, but then he gave those stories surprising twists so that a field of lilies or seeds on the ground never meant the same to them again. He ate around the tables of both Pharisees and renowned sinners, tailoring his stories for the crowds. But as engaging as he was, the people who heard him were never merely entertained.

Striking a Balance
We see Paul trying to strike this same delicate balance in his letters to the churches. Clearly, he is trying to answer their questions and speak to the reality of each community. But he seems to expect some of his teachings are going to cause tension, shock, or outrage. Just as the Romans were leaning in to hear about sinning more so there”s even more grace, he tells them to die to sin. Just as the church at Corinth was feeling good about living in freedom, he goes on to talk about protecting the conscience of a brother or a sister.

Paul had a way of selling these early consumers of Christianity exactly what they did not know they were asking for, but what he knew they needed.

When church leaders are deciding what songs to sing, stories to tell, or programs to offer, we are wise to follow Jesus and Paul”s lead and spend time listening and discerning the needs of our communities, imagined or real. We may have to listen beyond just what they are telling us or e-mailing us to complain about. We may have to deliver words or offerings that speak to the things they don”t know how to say out loud.

I am part of a church that has done this very well. We have worked hard to follow the example of Paul in Athens and name the unknown gods of our community. We do a lot of topical teaching. We have strong recovery programs and a buffet of entry points into community life. We meet felt needs. Occasionally, we strike the nerves people don”t even know are there.

But like a lot of churches that have succeeded at engaging people, we are starting to recognize engagement can”t be the endgame. Engaging the bride doesn”t always lead to the bridegroom. Treating our worship services like giant jukeboxes playing all the hits doesn”t always lead to worship. Offering the right combination of classes and small groups doesn”t always lead to spiritual transformation.

Looking for Life

I find the letter to the church in Sardis in Revelation 3 to be one of the most frightening passages in the Bible:

To the angel of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you (vv. 1-3).

This letter, written to one of the largest churches at the time, a church with a degree of affluence, reminds us it is entirely possible for any church to look alive but really to be dead. It”s possible for us to offer all the best programs, to put on the most entertaining hour in our community, to be growing in size and strength, and still to have no connection to the power of God at work in the world.

It”s possible for us to rely on our research, surveys, consultants, planning meetings, conference attendance, and yes, maybe even a hint of our own wisdom, and totally to miss the movement of God. It”s not just how we deal with a consuming community, it”s how we deal with the consuming fire of God.

I absolutely believe the church has the best story to tell the world. The gospel is more compelling than any movie, show, song, story, or meal. We should share it well, with sensitivity to the language and the concerns of our communities. But if in the midst of sharing the gospel, we somehow miss leaving room for God actually to come into the room and wreck all of our plans, we might not really be alive.

Before we wrestle with any questions about our target audiences or our cultural relevancy, our meetings ought to include the question: Are we encountering the spirit of the living God? When the answer to that question is a definitive “yes,” even the meetings about parking become a lot more fun.

Laura Buffington serves as spiritual formation pastor with SouthBrook Christian Church in Miamisburg, Ohio.