NOTE: This is an OLD post from 2007, and I no longer agree with everything I have written about church below. To learn my more recent views, read some of my newer posts on the church, or my books on church. Better yet, sign up to take my free online course on the church.
I like fast food, but not always from the same place. I like the hamburgers from Wendy’s, the french fries from Burger King, and a soda from the convenience store ($0.59 for 32 oz!). Occasionally, when I have the time, I will actually eat my lunch this way, driving around to each location to get what I want.
It gets even worse when I’m with my wife and daughters. Wendy won’t eat fast food at all, unless it’s a Deli fresh sandwich and Jamocha shake from Arby’s. Taylor will only eat cheeseburgers from McDonalds. Selah won’t eat fast food at all, and so we have to bring apples and a PBJ for her. We can’t figure out what Kahlea eats.
Needless to say, with such a mix-and-match menu, we don’t do fast food very often.
But this is how many people “attend church.” They go to one church for the awesome music and great children’s program. But the pastor’s preaching there is usually too shallow, so they get their sermons online from John MacArthur, Mark Driscoll, or Rob Bell. The church they attend has small groups, but most are too far away, so they get fellowship on Friday night by going out to dinner with a few friends, most of whom go to different churches. Some of these friends don’t go to church at all, in which case, it’s not “fellowship” but “relationship evangelism.”
Though many churches today try to provide “one stop shopping” most Christians engage Christianity with a “mix and match” mentality.
Church Shopping
I have been guilty of this myself quite frequently the past few years, but recently, I have begun to question the legitimacy of it. I have justified such church venue as trying to get the “best of everything” from wherever I can find it. “Besides,” I tell myself, “I’m part of the universal church, and it doesn’t matter where I get the things I need to be healthy, as long as I get them from somewhere.”
But is this true?
In a previous post, I proposed a definition for what the church is and does. After reflection, I think this definition needs some refinement.
Not only must Christians exalt God through a life of worship, edify one another through the use of spiritual gifts, and evangelize the world, I now also believe that all of these things must be done together with the same group of believers.
Body of Christ
I get this from Paul’s frequent usage of “body” imagery when talking about the church (cf. Eph 4:11-16; 1 Cor 12). The emphasis in these passages is not only that the various parts have various functions, but that each part must perform it’s particular function with and for the other parts that it receives benefits from.
The body of Christ is a symbiotic relationship. If you have the gift of helps, the person(s) you get your primary Bible teaching from should also be the person(s) you are trying to help (in big churches, you may not actually be helping the teaching pastor, but you can help him indirectly through doing things in the church and for the people of the church). The group you meet with for encouragement and prayer should be the group that goes out with you to develop relationships for evangelism and discipleship. Only in this way can they encourage and pray for you more effectively.
Following the imagery of the body, the people whose spiritual gifts you are spiritually benefiting from, should be the same people who benefit from your spiritual gifts. Otherwise, we’ve got a foot taking nourishment from a mouth and cleaning from a hand, but not helping either one walk where they need to go. It’s a selfish and disjointed way to function.
Does this mean you can’t get good Bible teaching from Alistair Begg or Matt Chandler unless you go their church? Of course not. Just don’t consider that your church teaching. Does this mean you can’t reach out to the community with people from other congregations? I hope you do partner in this way with other churches! But don’t consider this your evangelism unless you are also joining with people from your own body of believers.
I am not trying to be legalistic about all this. I just want you and your church body to be healthy. Besides, you’ll find this approach much more enjoyable and natural than driving all over to get a full meal.
Jeremy,
I just found your blog today. I’m working toward planting a church and think that while you are right on track Biblically, realistically I’m not sure how feasible this is. In a plant like ours, we are small and simply don’t have enough mass yet to do very many things, and so I have been doing some teaching on the universal body of believers, which is call “Big C Church,” and how we can be involved in other churches in town to get what we ourselves cannot offer.
William
William,
You are right that we can (and should) go to other local churches for what we ourselves cannot do. For example, why put on a “Christmas Show” when the mega church down the road can do a Holywood style production? Let them do it, and then attend it as a church.
All I meant to say in my post is that each person in the local church should be using their gifts with the people that they are regularly meeting with, and who are using their gifts toward me.
And ultimately, we don’t need all the bells and whistles of bigger churches. As I pointed out in a previous posting, there are only three essentials to doing church. There is not a whole lot of instruction in Scripture on how to do these three things, and so as long as your local church is accomplishing these three, I am satisifed.
Of course, as I heard a pastor recently say: “In the absence of the ideal, grace abounds.”
I am not sure I agree. I think “shopping” for spiritual products is a bad idea. However, as William said, we are all part of the Big C church. I honestly don’t see anything wrong with my daughter going to one church because she found a group of Christian youth that she resonates with and me going to another church’s women’s ministry because they are doing a series about something I care about, and my husband joining another churches softball league because he likes to pray with the men before the game. (I am just making all this but but I can see how that could happen.) I see us all as part of one great big Body. The problem is when I look to the church to “meet my needs” and shop around for the best product. When we are simply a bunch of tasty products and not a true body of committed believers, then we have a problem.
Wendy,
Actually, I disagree with myself as well. This post was from almost 5 years ago, and in that time, my ecclesiology has changed quite a bit. I agree with what you said, that we are all part of the “big C church.” Yes, we should not be shopping as consumers, but we can benefit from different things that are being done in various places within the Body of Christ. That’s part of why it is great that there is so much diversity within the Church!
Accepting diversity is a noble sentiment, if the topic is fashion styles, but in our ecclesiology, it is inaccurate. We are actually accepting ds-unity, and thereby burying the difficult conversation we should have about not loving one another as Jesus loved us. So many smaller difficulties & I suspect several long term problems that have crippled & twisted us into our current deformity would be healed, if a few leaders used their platforms to address the elephant in the sanctuary, as it were. We’re collectively over thinking the simplicity of the scriptural narrative & talking over the quiet voice of the Holy Spirit, while marching into battle. And as we lose a bit more of the secular culture each generation, we parse out the big historical picture of generationall failure to call it what it is and take responsibility to change our own church family culture.
Disobedience to God, individually & collectively, in a myriad of unpublished ways is our Achilles heel. Pardon the use of a pagan metaphor but sadly I’ve found too many readers would be unfamiliar with some of the more obscure Old Testament examples.
Mix & match church attendance is a creation of, and facile solution for brethren suffering from the effects of loveless marriages, spiritually & possibly naturally. The church’s DNA, having been breathed into us by God thru Christ, is familial, nurturing, covenental & lifelong, as our natural biological DNA mirrors, when it’s healthy. But our current behavior to one another as Jesus body, and as His brethren, suggests that our DNA has been altered & co-opted by a spiritual equivalent of Monsanto Corporation. That entity is of course the deceiver, Lucifer, as an angel of light, who has infiltrated our family, and gained a following of careless & ambitious souls.
I challenge you brother, to address this, before the darkness overtakes us.
If we love one another as He loves us, then, and only then, can we know for certain that we are walking in the light.
And only then can we storm the gates of hell to set other captives free.