Imagine walking into your favorite ice cream place….and finding out all they have is vanilla. Maybe it’s Ben and Jerry’s and all they is “Vanilla Ice baby baby”…and other options such as “Super vanilla”. They may have a few varieties….but they’re all vanilla. Imagine your disappointment as you realize no matter what you get…it all tastes the same. I understand this feeling…we just returned from overseas and we’re finding that no matter where we attend….it’s all the same….vanilla. And I have to ask….Is God vanilla? If you look at his church….you would think so.
I’ve been involved in church planting for over 17 years…and I’ve seen it all and done it all. A new model comes out…we clone it, package it, ship it and embrace it. I started when everything was Willow-Creek…. with dramas, greeters, and matching worship teams. Now we’ve got “modern” church….coffee in the lobbies, branding, rocking children’s music, spiked hair, podcasts, multiple services, multiple campuses and it all tastes the same….vanilla
Here’s the normal morning…..cool graphics greet you at the street….lobby filled with faux-Starbucks and donuts….slick entertainment-based children’s ministry, friendly “greeters”, loud aggressive music complete with cheesy guitar solos straight from the 80’s….pleasant sermon…then back to the coffee filled lobby and the graphic filled parking lot. Total time….1 hour…total amount of interactions with people….2-3…including the obligatory “Where’s the bathroom?” What was missing?
Honestly…all of the things we supposedly go to church for…interactions. Interaction with God….there was one corporate prayer for the offering. The music wasn’t designed for worship…the lyrics were light on theology and too high for most of us to sing. There was no down time for anyone to actually connect with God. Interaction with the Word….the clock was running and so the Word was thrown at us….interpreted for us….and even applied for us. Interaction with each other….this supposedly is the reason we attend church versus watching on TV….and there was none. This church has bought into the lie that three tight, rushed services are better than 2 free-flowing interactive services. Success is quantity…not quality remember.
So if we serve such a creative God…a God who is always the same yet never boring. If we serve a God who creates species of plants and animals that we continue to discover. If we serve a God who spoke this creativity into us as he breathed life into us…..then why is the church so vanilla?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I believe the short answer is human nature. If you look at other facets of life, we want a reproducible method that equals the same outcome. People trumpet the exact way to raise a child, find a mate, lose weight, make money, the “correct” age to get married so you don’t end up divorced–I could go on and on, but you’ve seen all the books that have flourished under this idea. We’ve just applied it over to the spiritual side of life.
I detailed more of this in “Programme Overload” last week, but we seem to think (in both church and other lifestyle endeavours) that if someone else found a formula that works for them, our exact replication should equal the same results. Oddly enough, it often doesn’t work. The reality is that God gave us a brain to realise the differences in situations and adjust accordingly. We just don’t want to exercise this in favour of taking what we see as the tried-and-true way.
The marketability of the Western church is troubling to say the least. Why do we in the west constantly whittle our experience down to a McNugget sized experience? Bland, unoriginal, uninspiring, and ultimately bad for you. I’m not opposed to the corporate Sunday morning experience being similar no matter where you go. We serve the same God so that makes sense. However, this “branding” of the N.American church and the slickness in which it is produced is sickening and it is not the experience that being a part of God’s church was supposed be.
This is a challenge that I also have been feeling since being back in the U.S. I am encouraged to see some changes, wishing to see lots more. Also, am finding some good stories that are worth telling and exploring.