A couple of weeks ago, I shared some thoughts in regards to Michael Spencer’s (iMonk’s) thoughts on what he calls The Coming Evangelical Collapse. Here are most of the summary words from my article:

Revivalism, evangelicalism, ecumenicalism, protestantism, roman catholicism, or any other ‘ism’ is not necessarily inherently evil. But all ‘isms’ and movements usually get caught up in their own mindset, their own perspective, and this generally leads to such followers being steered from the truth of the kingdom rule of God. So a shaking will come, must come, and those things that are not truly grounded in the kingdom rule of God will shake, collapse, and fall. There is no doubt about it, for Scripture teaches us this will happen (Hebrews 12:26-29). And I believe this is a good thing. Not easy, but good.

If someone’s faith is shattered because American evangelicalism collapses, or any other ‘ism’ collapses, then that is a good thing. It shows that their faith was not founded firmly upon Christ and His kingdom alone. But the good news is that God would use this time of shaking and collapse to rebuild something on the true foundation of His kingdom. Thus, I would openly welcome an American evangelicalism collapse.

But let us all be challenged to found our beliefs and actions on Christ and His kingdom, rather than on the philosophies of American evangelicalism, or any other ‘ism’ for that matter.

If you want to read my full article, click here. But, I now move on to consider some new thoughts tied into this whole area.

One of the biggest struggles I have with the church in America, and noting its influence into western Europe and the rest of the world, is its insatiable appetite for bigness.

While I have no problem with growing, though I think growth should first start with the body of Christ growing up into Christ (Ephesians 4:15-16), there seems a non-stop effort in herding people through the doors. This is all in large part due to the ‘church growth movement’ of the past couple of decades. America has, now, thought of everything possible to get people into our buildings, including that we’ve thrown in the kitchen sink. And it all seems summarised in these three words: captalism, consumerism and entertainment.

Ouch, that smarts.

The American church seems to have taken on the mindset of a free-market economy where we all try and outdo the other contenders in our market with providing the best product and services available to the people.

It’s almost like the goal, from the beginning, is to capture people with the ‘Wow factor’. How fast can we get people to say, ‘Wow!’ once they walk through our doors?

No, that’s probably not the literal thinking that is going through someone’s mind on the outreach or vision team of a local church, or whatever snazzy name we’ve come up to define this team. But I think the American church has operated under that mindset for quite some time now. The great pastoral theologian, Eugene Peterson, states it this way:

‘A huge religious marketplace has been set up in North American to meet the needs and fantasies of people just like us. There are conferences and gatherings custom-designed to give us the lift we need. Books and videos and seminars promise to let us in on the Christians “secret” of whatever we feel is lacking in our life: financial security, well-behaved children, weight-loss, exotic sex, travel to holy sites, exciting worship, celebrity teachers. The people who promote these goods and services all smile a lot and are good-looking…

It isn’t long before we are standing in line to buy whatever is being offered. And because none of the purchases does what we had hoped for, or at least not for long, we are soon back to buy another, and then another. The process is addictive. We have become consumers of packaged spiritualities.’ (Christ Plays In Ten Thousand Places, p125)

This does describe a lot of what is going on in the American church.

How many of us have walked through the door to be greeted by the aroma of Starbucks coffee at a state-of-the-art coffee bar. We even look around and wonder if the lobby furniture is worth an amount that might help save a small third-world nation. We walk into the ‘worship centre’, or whatever name its called by, and our eyeballs open wide to the fact that there are three video screens, multiple video cameras, coloured spotlights pointing at the stage, a ten-person team of musicians, plush seats, and so much more for our enjoyment. It’s like we either went to the cinema or we are at a Coldplay concert.

Or, maybe our eyes don’t widen in awe any longer. Its become the status quo, the regular expectation.

Now, of course, none of these things I mentioned above are evil in and of themselves. My local church uses PowerPoint on a screen on Sunday mornings. We have a couple of coaches and chairs to lounge around in. But, with all of these things combined together with a certain mindset, one gets a sense that this is a far cry from what we read about in Acts and the New Testament letters.

‘Hold on. Wait a minute,’ someone might say. ‘This is the 21st century. They didn’t have such things in the first century, but they are available today. So we can utilise them for the kingdom.’

That is completely true. That is why I commented that none of these things are evil in and of themselves. But, if one really takes time to contemplate what they see, considering it with the approach to ministry in most of these types of churches, one senses there might just be something a little off base. We actually wonder if this is anything like what Jesus or Peter or Paul of John spoke of, for remember, ministry simply means service.

Now, of course, those Christians of the first century didn’t have video projectors, PowerPoint, lights, cameras, coffee bars, and other such things. But, with what they had, believe me, people knew how to throw a party. Think of it this way: If Caesar came into town, the people knew how to roll out the proverbial red carpet, make banners, call out the band, make a feast, pop open the wine, make a celebration. They knew how to do things. And it would have been spectacular.

Not only that, but let’s go into the religious arena. The only glimpse we get into such action is what we refer to as Jesus cleansing the temple, found in Matthew 21, Mark 11, Luke 19 and John 2. Interesting that all four Gospel writers felt it important to refer to this account. Here we see Jesus overturning the tables of the money-changers, even having the audacity to make a whip to drive the people out. But Jesus saw these people, all in the name of religion, making money off of God. What? Are you serious? How can this be?!

But here is a first century example of consumerism within the faith. You better believe Jesus burned with anger over this.

And, so, going back to Eugene Peterson, he continues with these thoughts:

‘This [what we see in North America] also is idolatry. We never think of using this term for it since everything we are buying or paying for is defined by the adjective “Christian.” But idolatry it is nevertheless: God packaged as a product; God depersonalized and made available as a technique or program. The Christian market in idols has never been more brisk of lucrative.’ (Christ Plays In Ten Thousand Places, p125)

And America keeps on churning out its lights, camera, action, books, t-shirts, bracelets, conferences, coffee shops, etc, almost if we are trying to become the spiritual McDonald’s of the world. But, I think most of us know true Christian spirituality and McDonald’s don’t fit well together. Yet, so many have been blinded to the fact that capitalism, consumerism and non-participatory entertainment drives our thinking.

So, while the first century didn’t have the technological capabilities that we have available to us today, they had there own ideas of how to make a buck off God. And this grieved the heart of the divine Son, Jesus. But thankfully He didn’t give up on us. He still washed our feet, still was nailed to the cross, still came out of the grave as victor over sin, the enemy and death.

But we need a major change in the way we think. We don’t need to ‘do’ church another way, as some would say. We just need to get on with being the church, which is first and foremost about being family.

Not that you need my permission, but I’m ok with us using PowerPoint. As I said, I happen to use it on Sundays. I’m ok for Christians to write books. I have a blog. I’m even ok if you have some nice coffee to serve on Sundays. I enjoy coffee, especially what we have over here in Europe. But it’s our mindset that must change.

We need a renewed understanding of what church, or ekklesia, is all about. It is about the people of God, the body of Christ, the family of God, gathered together, even if that’s only 2 or 3 of us (considering Matthew 18:20). In its essence, church is not about our great youth programs, or many-membered worship teams, or 5-year building funds, or whatever peripheral issue we could discuss. Its about the people of God in relationship with the Trinity and with each other.

So, again, if American evangelicalism collapses, as iMonk suggests, I will be quite ok with it. And, if it does, I know that the stuff worth standing on will stay standing. And it’s on that rock, that unshakable foundation, that we can begin to rebuild with a kingdom mindset.

If interested, here are some recently posted thoughts from Michael Spencer (iMonk) that are connected with the topic of this article.