Consumer or Contributor?

"And whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. 45 For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." Mark 10:44-45, NIV

Nothing seems to be more settled in the Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ than that He was a servant. Whether He was touching a leper, teaching a multitude or washing the feet of the disciples, Jesus served others. His life was about giving, not getting.

Nothing has become more clear to me of late than the fact that the lives of most church-goers do not reflect the example of Our Lord. For most, church is about what one can get, not what one can give. Most church-goers are consumers. The more the church can provide for people the consume the larger the congregation grows -- at least for a while. An encounter with a lady this week drove home this point to me.

We were renting a storage unit in anticipation that we may have to move in the near future and we wanted to start sorting through the "stuff" we have accumulated (consumed) over the years. Most of you know that story. This lady manages the storage center we were using. In the course of the conversation we shared our vision for starting house churches. We shared that we were preparing to make some changes to allow us to move forward with our vision. Apparently, she heard something different. She heard that we must be wandering Christians who were having a hard time finding a church. She invited us to visit her church.

She preceded to go through a rather lengthy list of services the church provided for people of all ages. I felt like she was reading to me from a menu expecting me to pick the items that were of interest to me. Not one word in this conversation indicated that she contributed anything TO the church, but consumed numerous services FROM the church. I found that this attitude is typical of persons attending traditional churches. In fact, this is the way discipleship is presented by the leadership of traditional churches.

In most traditional churches the staff's primary duty is plan services and opportunities for people to consume. Generally, the larger churches get a majority of religious consumers because they can offer a "better menu." Larger churches (350 plus) account for only about twenty percent of the total churches but they account for about 50 percent of the attendance in any given city. Just like people shop at the stores that provide the best services people attend churches that provide the best services. We live in a consumer-driven society and that includes churches as well as other products and services. People go for what they can get.

Jesus came for what He could give. That should be our model. However, it is much harder to attract people to church by explaining the "cost" of discipleship. It is a much harder sell to tell prospective church-goers that Jesus expects us to live sacrificially in service to our fellow man. True discipleship is about giving and going not coming and getting. True disciples ask what can I contribute, not what is there for me to consume.

Churches continue to feverishly plan and provide numerous spiritual products for people to consume. It becomes increasingly difficult to meet the needs of consumers and churches are beginning to feel the weight of this misguided approach to Christianity. The example of Our Lord calls us to be "contributors, not consumers" -- givers not getters.