I’m at The People’s Church in Franklin, Tn this morning where the MinistryCom conference is taking place. It’s a conference for communications guys and gals from churches, event churches mostly, at least the couple dozen I’ve met so far. (Remember, “event church” is just a descriptor and not an insult. When I use it I’m referring to a church which spends the overwhelming majority of its time, energy, staff, skill and cash on an event like a SUnday morning service or concert or “crusade” in hopes that those on the outside will be drawn to the inside.)
I’m not part of this conference. I’m an innocent bystander.
My wife is out of town, with her sister, heading to Arkansas to visit family for a few days worth of vacation. I’ve got the kids. Two of them are in this building for a preschool thingy and my oldest is here once a week for a homeschool co-op deal. The co-op folks require a parent to remain in the building at all times. I’m it. So here I sit, in the “grand lobby” of the People’s Church, surrounded by smiling young guys and gals with good haircuts and trendy jeans – feels like the music business – sipping coffee, talking on their iPhones and perusing booths for on-line ticket services and facilities management, automated receptionists, on-line graphic design services, streaming video technology, video church start-up kits, and church marketing and branding companies.
My favorite banner says “We make those who do good look good.” Wow. That really does say it all doesn’t it?
UPDATE: I just overheard a conversation between a salesman and a “arts pastor” in which the “arts pastor” disclosed that his budget is over a million dollars a year and his church is building over one hundred million dollars of new facilities in the next ten years. A pond, a recreation center, a small chapel for “wedding revenue” since their main room isn’t all that traditional looking, a “modern worship facility,” an office complex…
.
– here at Seacoast last year and I heard great reports that it was a good show…
I don’t really know how this fits in, but one of the things I remember most from a class on church growth that I took was about how when the church starts spending money on itself, it will cease to grow in converts. the more outwardly focused the money is the more new life the church has.
Of course this was a class on church growth at a Christian college. some people would have a problem with that alone! Oh and I’m not a numbers person…this isn’t about numbers, it’s about fresh new growing life.
Yikes!
Beth
Wonder what their missions budget is.
Okay question what do they mean by “good”. Do they mean that so-and-so is out busting his butt to try and save someone’s life physically and spiritually and that’s “good” or do they mean “good” as in the ol’ you’re blessed by God because you have money so you’re “good” or do they mean “good” as in because they go to church every Sunday and Wednesday night, can quote John 3:16 and their “life verse”, tithe their 10%, own a King James Bible, and live “morally correct” does that make them “good”?
Hmmm….so somewhere around here I have a soapbox to jump on about what “worship” is, or isn’t. Last time I checked, it’s not something big and impressive that is done TO or FOR a bunch of people that are spectating so that they can clap and go “oooo” and “ahhh” at all the technology. I say bring back the tambourines and wind pipes and bring on the preacher!
I think this is why Brant doesn’t go to church : ) …It is becoming to commercialized. Church is now a show – not just a house of worship. Can’t we just love people for who they are and do it just as we are? One would think that if we look to good – then that would make others uncomfortable… Plus didn’t Jesus point out the following in Matthew 23:57 about the Pharisees and religious leaders:
5″Everything they do is done for men to see: They make their phylacteries[a] wide and the tassels on their garments long; 6they love the place of honor at banquets and the most important seats in the synagogues; 7they love to be greeted in the marketplaces and to have men call them ‘Rabbi.’
Sounds to me like they liked to “Look Good” too, and I believe He referred to them as snakes and a brood of vipers…
Nothing wrong with looking good and doing our jobs well IMHO.
Gross.
Ok that’s freaky and wrong and sad all at the same time!
Is your tongue bleeding from biting it yet?
why don’t you talk about this at ‘abandoned?’ would be provacative but needed…
No, there’s nothing wrong with looking good and doing our jobs well…but not at the expense of being a “church”. If looks were what Jesus cared about, He probably would have chosen 12 other people. I’m not saying that doing worship “well” is wrong, because in a sense it has to be done “well” in order for others to gather into it, and I believe worship can be done extravagantly as well and still be worshipful. That’s not the point. The point is that this church appears to be focusing primarily on what it does within its own walls, and that’s just not cricket!
I too wonder what the budget is for other ares of that church with the “art pastor” (I’ve never even heard of such a thing!).
Well, did you do anything about it? I certainly would have been one to ask this ‘arts pastor’ about his job and mission and how Jesus stepped out on His mission without anything flashy besides His miracles. And His disciples went out with even less.
Perhaps a little nudging and you could get yourself invited to a few event churches and tell them about meeting people where they’re at and the wonders they can do for the poor and hopeless.
Steve, many of my gigs are at event churches. And I do believe part of my work there is to think out loud on the mission and purpose of the Christian and Church without actually posing it as that exactly.
a church I used to go to had a celebrative arts pastor. (in response to Erin)
iPhone. Pffft. It’s jesusPhone.
But what about Solomon???? I bet if he would have lived today God would have told him to slap up at least 6 jumbo trons and a mini-ark for the kids.
Not sure about the iphone though. I’m pretty sure God hates the iphone.
Jesus phone works if you use the latin:
iesus phone.
are you stalking me?
that’s the conference i’m at that i mentioned at the airport….
i’m (here) there…(actually in my hotel now in brentwood)
no trendy jeans though. and i left my trendy glasses at home. seeing blurry is more fun.
if you happen to arrive tomorrow…well…try and search out the nontrendy girl.
Yea, what about Solomon? What say the expensive church bashers to that one?
Come on , this one’s easy. I’ll let someone else answer for a change.
Hey its what blogs are for, but you guys are making a whole lot of presumptions about churches that you have never been to and don’t know the real experiences of…As someone presenting at ministryCOM who is at a church who would consider ourselves to be very much missional I would just ask that you give grace and benefit of doubt.
Just because the methods are different does not mean they are wrong…IF, and I know its a big IF, the return on Ministry of 100 million dollars spent is that thousands of people come to know and experience Jesus and become fully-devoted followers of Christ who continue to reach more people, who cares – its just money. I think sometimes we begin to worship money with the value that we assign to it being spent “wrongly”…the end game is more people for Jesus…I agree that God hates the IPhone…
peace
Shawn Wood
experience Pastor
Seacoast Church
Okay it’s nice and all how we go off on tangents about money but really no one answered my question. What do they mean by “good” for cryin’ out loud?!
I just posted on the conference you are talking about on the MinistryCOM.org blog.
I think people should at least consider that more happened at MinistryCom today than a single overheard conversation. People talked about all kinds of things in the halls and in the workshops.
I know I personally overheard several people even talking about Starbucks.
on my list of best experiences ever is baptizing formerly lost people during weekend services at a flashy church. one time it was in hot tubs – i got wrinkly skin because we did it all weekend. another time we did them in a lake and i kept slipping in the mud. that wasn’t so flashy. but it was still great.
flashy churches work, too…actually, the better way to say it is, God works in flashy churches, too. even in the mud.
is the conference over? say hi to my friend, curt, if you see him there. that’ll blow his mind.
Shawn W, thanks for stopping by. I agree. A church spending that kind of cash isn’t a problem. Spending that kind of cash on buildings also may not be a problem. But spending that kind of cash on a wedding chapel as a “revenue builder” and other facilities seemingly – admittedly presumptuous – unrelated to the mission of the Church is, well, troubling. Though, sure, absolutely, this is presumptuous.
This is a place to make presumptions without being unkind or insulting, then talk about those presumptions, figure out why they’re being made, if they’re right or wrong, if they matter etc. Thanks for your contribution to that discussion.
You have no way of knowing this, Shawn, but I know event church well enough to make educated presumptions for two reasons: 1)I worked in one for a total of four non-consecutive years. Muhc of my job graphic design related at one point and all about the quality of the event on Sunday morning. I went to the conferences, drank the kool-aid and lobbied for more “Relevance” in the form of a better cooler event. I’ve been on the inside. 2)I currently play music and speak at about 100 churches every year. Many of those churches are event churches, spending most (not all) of their resources (all kinds) on Sunday morning activities – the event. Sometimes I’M the event. Rock, me, hard place. SO, mine are informed presumptions.
I work with event churches because I want their money. I represent Compassion International, a child advocacy organization, at every engagement. And my goal in an event church is to expose members to the Jesus I know who spoke more about poverty than heaven and hell in hopes that they’ll spend less on themselves (spend less of everything) and more on the world outside themselves, beginning with kids in the third world.
I try to communicate to event churchers for this Jesus who spoke more about going than attracting, more about discipleship than mere conversion and demanded we put the needs of those around us ahead of our own. His church was founded by slaves and launderers and it sold it’s possessions and gave to the needy until everyone had enough. It healed the sick, fed the hungry, sheltered the cold, visited the criminal, cared for the widow and this, God says, is true religion. If we do not do these things, I say, we aren’t Christians (1 John 3, 4).
I hope to point out, subtly, subversively, the apparent dissonance between being a Christ follower and, at the same time, being self-absorbed. I do this by telling my own story of moving from excess to less because I felt hypocritical being a minister and a singer guy who wasn’t living more like Jesus would have – I presume – if he were in America today. If Jesus knew 30,000 children died every day because of poverty related causes would He spend $100,000,000 on buildings? If he had a non-Christian neighbor would He invite them to an event or just, you know, be a Christian neighbor? I don’t know. I can only presume. And then live in light of that presumption.
btw, what’s an “Experience Pastor?”
Flashy isn’t the issue. Values, message, purpose – those are more the issue (This was tackled today at the conference by Brad Abare of ChurchMarketingSucks.com apparently.)
There’s no denying that the look or style of a church does not determine these things for a church (though they can reflect them.) There’s also no denying, however, that a church spending most of its resources on its weekly event (even if that event sucks, isn’t flashy, is traditional, is boring, is culturally out of step, etc) is used by God, imaging God, but also out of step with God’s original full intentions for the Church and the Christian. How is giving 35 billion dollars a year to “congregational expenses” while entrusting the poor, unhealthy and orphaned to government entitlement programs in line with the mission of the church?
This isn’t about modern or young versus old and traditional. I grew up in an event church that did not innovate, did not change, ever, for any reason, and was far from “flashy” but also invested most of itself in Sunday morning – while all around it there was work to be done and need to be met. I was such a need. My family needed groceries, a job for my dad, the lights turned on, someone to notice. But, while we had money to buy a pipe organ and staff to run a rec center with bowling alley and sauna we did not have the resources for people like me. Event churches come in all shapes, sizes and with all sorts of expensive (not just monetarily) addictions that keep them focussed on their own fix: steeples and jumbotrons, pews and pods – it’s all the same to me.
Clearer now what I’m talking about?
shawn, no doubt, the issue isn’t flashy, tradition, “the way it used to be” or any of that. the issue is loving God and loving others. there is such an interesting conversation going on throughout blog land about all things christian. an evaluation of all things. let’s strip it down and keep a laser beam focus to do what it takes to love God and love other people in all walks of life with special attention to the poor.
Absolutely, John. That’s the essential.
Hey Shaun,
Your conversation has seemed to really touch a tender spot with folks.
It sounds like your underlying concern is when churches become more focused on themselves and/or how they’re packaging things and are oblivious to those in need around them.
I’ve also been on the “inside”, [prev. on staff @ Willow Creek leading Visual Communications], as well as on the “outside” [consulting with churches all over the country on brand strategy.] I get what you’re saying.
I’d say the majority are doing the best they can and have a real passion for wanting to reach people far from God, through events or otherwise. Some do get a little lost themselves along the way in an attempt to be relevant.
I think [to reinforce Shawn W’s point] the key thing to measure IS how many lives are being changed as a result, regardless of the cost. [financial or otherwise]
I’d imagine you’d consider Granger Community Church in IN an event church & they recently baptized 450 people in one weekend. [There’s a newspaper article that talks about it here: