Fundy Failure

There has always been an interesting and necessary tension between culture and Christianity. There are many different views of culture and different views of what the church should do with culture. Should we use culture? Create culture? Redeem culture? All of the above?

Most churches agree that some aspects of culture should be used by the church and other aspects of culture should be rejected by the church.

It seems to me that there are at least two negative aspects of American culture that has been widely assimilated and accepted by most churches in America: materialism and individualism.

Think about it. Most American Christians are materialistic and individualistic, and most churches not only fail to speak against these things, but they inadvertently promote them.  In the next couple of posts I will be talking about each one of these.

One of the things about culture that I think the American church has widely accepted is materialism. Many American churches meet in buildings that are far beyond anything that is necessary to fulfill the mission of the church.

I recently heard Rob Bell talking about the building Mars Hill meets in. They call it “the shed.” He said an architect told him that every building teaches something. The architect said that “the shed” teaches him that the action is somewhere else.  I thought about how most church buildings I know of would say that all of the action is in that building. Come to think of it, most church services I have been to say “this is what it’s all about.”

I am not condemning any particular form of church growth or church service and I certainly do believe that a church service should be exciting and done with excellence. I am trying to get us to think about what message we are conveying with our building and with our services. What is happening during the week? Is life change happening only on Sunday or is it happening every day?

The building, of course, is not the only way the church promotes materialism. We do it through our craving for clothes and style that fits what culture had dictated is “in”. It seems to me that too many times the church wants to be just like the culture. That’s not always bad, but definitely not necessary. There is nothing wrong with being in style. But there is something wrong with being materialistic in order to be in style. When the church starts buying into the idea that we “have to have” something because of whose name is on it or who is endorsing it or who wore at or who said it was “cool”, then I think we are missing it.

Again, I’m not suggesting that it is bad to be in style or have something that is popular. It’s all about the motive. Because when it comes down to it, materialism can only be determined by motive.