Consumer or Kingdom Christianity…

As I look at my own life I think my faith fluctuates between Consumer Christianity and Kingdom Christianity. What do I mean by these terms?

Consumer Christianity:

In 2005 Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist wrote Soul searching: The religious and spiritual lives of American teenagers. In this book they researched the lives of three-thousand Christian teenagers and found that they were guided by Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (Deism is an 18th century idea of a distant God who is selectively available to take care of my needs). The concept can be summarised as follows:

  1. A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.
  2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
  3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
  4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
  5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

I absolutely say “yes” to numbers one and two. But the next three, in my opinion, simply aren’t Christian beliefs. You see, sometimes we are called to sacrifice and putting others first which can result in me not always feeling happy or good about myself. Also, God wants to be involved in every details and area of our lives. And we know that it isn’t being good (and which one of us judges who is and isn’t good?) that gets us to heaven – it is Jesus; not Church, helping the elderly cross the road, paying my taxes, giving to charity, etc.. Kenda Creasy Dean writes in Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church: “The problem does not seem to be that churches are teaching young people badly, but that we are doing an exceedingly good job of teaching youth what we really believe, namely, that Christianity is not a big deal, that God requires little, and the church is a helpful social institution filled with nice people…”

This kind of thinking can easily lead us towards Consumer Christianity: “What is in it for me?” is our guiding question if the goal of life is for me to be happy and feel good about myself.

Simply put: This kind of church is unattractive to the world in which it is placed because it is no different to that world. If people come searching in the Church or with Christians they are looking for something different!

Kingdom Christianity:

A few weeks ago I sat in a coffee shop and though: What could a kingdom seeking church look like? Here are forty-one points (which became a sermon) that I jotted down …

1. Blurring: Where did Jesus’ “group” begin and end? He seemed to have a “tight centre” but blurred edges as to who did and didn’t belong.
2. Challenging: Jesus’ teaching is challenging – no getting around it! Church should challenge, as well as comfort, us.
3. Sending: Church literally means “sent ones” in Greek. In the Bible the word “sent” is used over six hundred and fifty times. Mostly it is about God doing the sending. This is a Trinitarian activity: The Father sends the Son who sends the Holy Spirit who sends us.
4. Loving: We do well to remember to love each other but above all that we must love God first. Do I really love God? Really…
5. Disturbing: Russell Rook writes: “The kingdom, by its very nature, never quite fits into our broken world. It is there to disturb us; to point out that it wasn’t meant to be this way.” I wonder if this is a reason why Jesus often went to the margins of society – to highlight them to us and remind us that they weren’t what God intended?
6. Giving: Church must be “other” focussed.
7. Captivating: Russell Rook writes: “Why is it that the language of the church has often become so static, so constrictive, so predictable, so irrelevant to our world, so, well, boring?” Church should take people’s breath away as they look at it.
8. Hair-raising: At Chessington World of Adventure I stand and hold the coats. Those rides are out of my comfort zone. Church should be like that at times. Are we allowed to stand at the side and hold the coats?
9. Looking: Are we taking note of the world in which we live?
10. Listening: My role as Club Chaplain at Tonbridge Angels is firstly to listen. Sometimes advice never trips off my tongue. A kingdom seeking church will be one that listens.
11. Blowing: Jesus and the religious leader Nicodemus had a chat. Nicodemus knew the scriptures and I’m confident was a good man. But Jesus said he needed more than intellectual brilliance. He also needed to be able to respond to the Holy Spirit who blows like the wind. We live in a church culture (in our area) that prizes intellectualism. Whilst there is certainly a place for this we’d do well to uphold the unpredictable movements of the Holy Spirit.
12. Accommodating: Do we allow people to be with us without making them like us?
13. Praying: I long to move beyond “prayer meetings” to a more organic view of prayer where it becomes part of the rhythm of our church. Where we need to pray when we catch up to thank God for what he is doing and seek him for what is needed.
14. Celebrating: Let’s shed our inhibitions about encouraging one another about what God is doing in our midst. We meet together to spur one another on in the faith as the writer to the Hebrews told us.
15. Fascinating: People should stop and stare at the art work that is church; not necessarily understanding it all, but becoming entranced by it.
16. Liberating: Russell Rook challenges us: “Our news is often bad, the price of the kingdom is overplayed, and the joy hardly mentioned.”
17. Worshipping: Our “right” is service and submission to the King. Service and submission are worship, which we all know includes but is far wider than Sunday services.
18. Changing: “The cross stands while the world revolves” is the old saying. Therefore, we can change the way we do things to respond to the world in which we live so long as we present the unchanging Jesus of the cross.
19. Dying: Church should be a place where death is accepted as part of life. This doesn’t mean we aren’t saddened and devastated by it, but we do know there is something beyond it. And this comforts us as a people.
20. Pondering: A kingdom seeking church should be reflective. There need be no guilt about sometimes stopping things for a season in order to make space to think and pray.
21. Daring: Speaking personally, Rick McKinley says: “Do we actually want the revolution of Jesus to break into our life and community? Frankly, we were worried about what we might lose.” “He who dares wins Rodney!” Not always the case, but we get what Del Boy is saying.
22. Caring: As humans we might not love everyone who crosses our paths but this doesn’t prevent us caring for them.
23. Unassuming: Many years ago shark-killer Ben Cropp was offered $1 million ($10 million nowadays) to fight a Great White Shark live on television for an hour. His conscience got the better of him and he pulled out pretending he had an ear infection. Our world is grabbed by the large, loud and ludicrous. Church often does small things and leaves the growth to God.
24. Amusing: We are not a GAP advert where everybody is physically and mentally perfect. We don’t match one another and live in perfect harmony. In fact, we’re an odd bunch that would never be together except for Jesus!
25. Maturing: None of us have arrived, know it all or have experienced everything. There’s always room for growth. Also, being mature isn’t necessarily linked with our age!
26. Enabling: A kingdom seeking church will de-clutter its “Christianity” of cultural baggage and accessories. It will do away with unnecessary maintenance and meetings.
27. Engaging: It will work with, not just for, other people.
28. Growing: Absolutely! But how do you measure it?
29. Living: This kind of church will take time to enjoy life. Productivity isn’t always productive. Enjoy the view, smell the flowers and pet the dog (so long as it doesn’t bite).
30. Hurting: Pope Francis said: “I prefer a church which is bruised, hurting and dirty because it has been out on the streets, rather than a church which is unhealthy from being confined and from clinging to its own security.” We need to see the hurt of others and allow it to hurt us and, if appropriate change our actions.
31. Uniting: Imagine running away with the teachers’ sheet music squabbling over every note and missing his symphony? We lay aside our small differences to gaze upon the king. We major on the majors and minor on the minors. Sadly, churches often major on minor issues and minor on the major issues of our faith.
32. Shrinking: Do small things with great love.
33. Dwelling: Life is local. This might be where you live, work or hang out – wherever your frontline is. I read of a challenge to get to know, love and serve the neighbours six doors either side of you. Now that’s a challenge for me!
34. Bearing: We will carry one another’s burdens; which means that we can’t hide them from each other either.
35. Partying: From the outside looking in we will be seen as a fun group of people to be with.
36. Following: In the Gospels Jesus always called people to follow him and this led to worshipping him. Churches often get it the other way around and worship in the hope that they will follow. When we follow Jesus on our frontline and see him in action we are then moved to worship him.
37. Talking: We will be happy to talk about Jesus and our kingdom-seeking church.
38. Storytelling: Somebody once said that stories are “data with soul”. As stories (narratives, metaphors, parables and images) were the dominant form of communication in the New Testament they will be for us when we share Jesus in our cultures.
39. Risking: We will refuse to play it safe for fear that we might fail. To be sure we will be wise and prudent but not just to keep us closeted from failing.
40. Understanding: We will try to understand another’s perspective. This doesn’t mean we have to agree with it.
41. Embracing: I can’t embrace the kingdom if my arms are full of me.

This looks like Kingdom Christianity to me. This looks attractive if you’re tired of some aspects of the world we live in.

Now I’m sure you could add to this list and that was part of the “wake-up” point for me in this process. There isn’t an exhaustive list, a “we’ve made it” moment, when it comes to what a kingdom seeking church looks like.

Rick McKinley says that the kingdom of God is a “beautiful mess”. It’s the kind of mess/mystery I’m sure we all want to be a part of. And the Good News as Rick Warren reminds us is: “God invites you to participate in the greatest, largest, most diverse, and most significant cause in history – his kingdom.”

Yours because of Jesus – Neil.

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