By Michael Kelley
I’m amazed at how deep my own consumerism runs. This is most clearly visible to me at how righteously offended I feel when someone or something doesn’t measure up to my expectations. So when, for example, the internet in my home is running slowly, I immediately look for the person who I have determined is the right recipient of my indignation.
That’s right – I look for someone to be mat at…when the wireless signal in my upper middle class home isn’t fast enough for me to sit and watch the exact tv show I want to watch on this magic box called a computer which, incidentally, also has no wires.
Sheesh.
It gets really disturbing, though, when that consumerism infiltrates our attitude toward our local churches. And it surely does. At some point, most any of us who grew up in a Christianized culture are going to look around at our church, the one we have supposedly given our lives to through membership, and see that some other church in town has better music. Or a trendier vibe. Or better coffee. Or a more polished preacher. Or whatever. Our church has suddenly become not cool enough, and that same righteous indignation boils up inside of us because we believe we deserve something more…we deserve the best!
So we leave.
Now let’s be clear — I’m not talking about legitimate reasons to leave a church. Those are real. There are doctrinal issues that are worthy of dividing fellowship over. I’m not talking an issue of the integrity of the gospel; I’m talking about the nonsensical issues of preference that make us church shop whenever we feel a little restless. In this post, I’d like to argue for three reasons to do the very counter-cultural thing of actually staying in the church that’s simply not cool enough:
1. It will teach you the nature of the church.
The church is not a place; it’s not an institution; it’s not a building. The church is the people of God, united despite their differences in race, creed, economics, or education under the common banner of grace and faith in Jesus Christ. We become consumers when we see church as an institution placed in the world to meet our needs instead of the called out people of God meant to represent His kingdom as an embassy in a foreign land.