Christianity Today's Out of Ur blog has an interesting topic entitled Dancing With Consumerism. You can read it right here. Shane Hipps makes the declaration that mega-churches are here to stay. I'm not sure whether or not he thinks that is 1. A good thing, 2. A bad thing, or 3. Irrelevant. But, he makes a three-fold synopsis of Jesus' ministry at the end of the interview that would indicate that mega-churches have not only missed the mark, but have missed the point of Jesus' earthly ministry altogether. Maybe I'm reading into this, but it seems clear to me.
But regardless of what Hipps thinks about the value of the mega-church, where we part sides in the discussion is in the debate over whether or not there will be mega churches in our future. Yeah, they'll be around for some time to come. A few will hang on until they become as irrelevant and burdensome as the multitude of ancient, pompous and lavish high churches and cathedrals that dot the landscape, which remain open despite the fact that one is lucky to find more than a dozen or two worshipers in attendance on any Sunday morning. But, one thing seems certain to me: There is a new generation who is either hot or cold. They have either grown fed up with the irrelevancy of the traditional, attractional church model, with its lethargic and gross inefficiency of its compassion, evangelism and discipleship-based ministries, or they will have hardened their hearts to religion altogether. These young people, I am convinced, will expose the folly of the consumerist church model and render it hypocritical to all but the most devout followers of the Benny Hinn's of the world.
When the Lord said in The Book of Revelations that he would rather that we were hot or cold, I believe this is what He was talking about. I am convinced that He sees more hope in people whose hearts have grown cold because of what they have observed of the lukewarm indifference of the Laodicean churches than he does in those who remain faithful to those churches, but who's faith has been emasculated by the religious facades promulgated by the leadership of those same churches.
Below is my response to Shane's interview as it appears in Out of Ur. The interviewer, in summary, asked, "What is the answer?" Here's mine.
I'm confused. Not a surprise. But, when I read the beginning of the article, it seems that Shane is a proponent of mega-churches and their consumer-driven agendas. Then, in the last part of the interview, he is asked, "What is the answer?" To which he shows us that Jesus was incarnational, counter-cultural, and yet privately contemplative and devotional. Does any of this sound like mega-church to you? It seems antithetical to mega-church as I know it.
I think Shane's answer is spot-on. Here are my responses to each of point of the 3-fold description of Jesus' ministry.
- Indeed, if we are to be incarnational, then we should integrate ourselves into society in ways that really matter to the heart and soul of mankind--in ways that really resonate with the masses, that speak to their true spiritual needs, not to their sensual and/or market-driven preconceptions of what pop-culture convinces them they need.
- To be countercultural is to resist the temptation to build congregations by appealing to society by way of pop-culture-dictated fads and marketing ploys the way the mega-churches do.
- To be able to reach people the way Jesus reached them requires a lot of quiet solitude and prayer to keep us in balance and from buying into the shallow lures of popular culture.
Yep, I agree with Shane. That seems like the answer to me too. From what I can see of this generation of Jesus followers, seekers, and not-yet Jesus followers, this 3 fold description of the life of Christ Shane talks about is the very thing that resonates with them. True, there is the Mega-church crowd that fills the pews and subsidizes these lavish worship-complexes, but do they mirror Christlike discipleship? I hope not.
