By Joshua Cody
The Church
The economics of creating a version of a secular product and aiming it at churchgoers are alive and well. This used to be primarily t-shirts and sermon themes.
These, thankfully, became passe and generally the subject of ridicule. Lately, something new seems to have emerged. I wouldn’t argue that it’s the same thing or spearheaded by the same people, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s equally silly.
I’m talking about Christian blog networks, Christian Stuff White People Like, Christian conferences, et al. The market of “Christian” + [secular idea or product name] is alive and well, recession notwithstanding. Don’t listen to me, just note the 440,778 pixels of ad space on Christian TechCrunch.
An aside: Can we please stop using Christian as an adjective to describe inanimate objects. Your blog is not a Christian. Your book is not a Christian. I know it’s convenient and has become accepted usage, but maybe we could push away from that?
Moving along. We want to ask bold questions on our blog. We don’t want to be like the Christians that came before us. We want to be forward-thinking, break new ground, create conversations, tweetup, lead the social media revolution, and more. So we blog, and then other Christians comment on our blog. Or we create conferences, and other Christians attend our conferences.
The Resistance
If you haven’t read The War of Art, you’re cheating yourself. In it, Steven Pressfield lays out a fairly simple thesis: You were put on this earth for a purpose-to do some sort of work. And there is a force that opposes that work and manifests itself in a multitude of ways, which can be called Resistance.
He doesn’t make many assumptions about the particulars of what endows purpose or what is behind Resistance, but he does posit that both are spiritual issues. The Resistance can look like a lot of things: disorderly work spaces, distractions, unhealthy relationships, and so on and so forth. He’s actually fairly ruthless in his ascription of Resistance.
I’d argue that “Christian” things have become Resistance for Christians. It’s much easier to blog or attend conferences of like-minded individuals or start a Christian golf cart company than it is to go about our lives, spend time with people in some way unlike ourselves, and have constructive conversations about the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
What if we mess up? What if we tell them Jesus loves them regardless of whatever shortcomings we perceive them to have, but then we find that we don’t love them? What if we are convicted about something? What if we just don’t like them? What if we become entangled in relationships to the point that we have to stop using we and them language, but we become them, and they become us? Will my friends from church still like me? What if I find out that in practice, my theology is wrong, and I have to change what I believe?
Those are hard questions. They’re scary questions. Know what’s not hard and scary? Christian golf carts.
Doing Your Work
All things to all men, cultural sensitivity, relativity, effective communication. I know, I know. But I do find it hard to imagine that Jesus would spend precious seconds of his life firing up his Google Reader, clicking over to [insert blog name here], and commenting on whether iPads are going to be the future of church communication.
I’m a little averse to the idea of “What would Jesus do?” thing as a life choice metric as it assumes we know the correct answer to that question, so I don’t want you to put too much stock in the preceding paragraph. But we do need to ask ourselves what we are to do.
I personally came to the realization that I was living in Resistance. My job was in a church. My writing was for a blog aimed at churches. My friends were from church. I was practically eating at a church. But unless someone stumbled into the church I worked at or happened to stumble upon something I wrote, I wasn’t influencing or being influenced by people unlike myself. And when your work is to make disciples, that’s not a healthy balance.
So my big ask is that we stop trying to become the next big thing in Christian culture or create the next huge Christian blog or start the next giant conference. Let’s do stuff, then write about it later instead of just blogging.
Less talking, more doing. Instead of creating a new site focused on iPad applications for emerging Christian leaders of the next generation catalyst synergy, coach your kid’s soccer team. Make cookies for your coworkers. Consider supporting your neighborhood association instead of paying airfare plus hotel plus rental car plus meals plus conference tickets.
Re-evaluate what your work is and what it should be, and make sure the two align well.
Joshua is a young, married twenty-something who believes the gospel should be communicated with clarity and passion, through actions before words. He writes at Church Marketing Sucks and on his Twitter page, and he currently resides in Portland, OR.
I like this a lot, Josh.
…yeah, but it’s so much easier to label stuff. It’s like we have the need to go around with our labelmaker that only has two options: Christian and Secular, slapping a label on all of culture, music, books, ideas, t-shirts, etc.
Totally, Curtis. This false dichotomy gets us in a lot of trouble. The regression from Christian and secular to pure and unpure to right and wrong to us and them is all-too-present, unfortunately.
Josh, you have hit the nail on the head. Thank you for this post. Check us out on Facebook. “Christians Tired of Being Misrepresented”.
Big thumbs up, friend in Christ!
At any given point in time, I am like Christ or unlike him; I either a friend or not; if I am a friend, I either behaving in a friend-like way or not; I’m either the real thing or not. Let’s say Agape Love were pure gold. Am I 24 Karat or am I 14 or am I not even an alloy, at any given point in time?
@Joey – um, what?
the Christian, holy and good labels
Here is an attempt to explain what I mean by my above comments. I think Joshua is right on in his above blog entitled ?Your Blog is Not Christian: Thoughts on Church and Work.? This response is general, not aimed at anyone, therefore it is not to put down the support and keen insights within this website.
People _myself included_ put a matter of fact Christian label onto things, for example Contemporary Christian Music. And those labels infer that the entity is run by Christians and that those Christians are like Christ in some better than ordinary way. Like for example, it often seems that those in the Contemporary Christian Music industry consider themselves anointed and superior to, at least by virtue of their evangelical mission, than those in the R&B genre or any other secular genre in the music industry.
The label Christian infers that the person or entity is ?like Christ? in character when, at points in time, this Christian in name or the persons representing the entity could be behaving in a manner that is significantly unlike Christ. Granted and obviously, a person will fall short of being Christ-like. And when a person soars in the Holy Spirit long enough, the easiest notion this person might subscribe to, the tendency, is to feel holier or more right than another or Christian while the other is less than holy and wrong.
The point is not that a person cannot be like Christ. The point is that people are human and imperfect to the marrow. Therefore, to dub a person who is graced with much good character with a super-human label is inaccurate. I?ll explain. However, though my explanation is in Gospel terms, I believe this matter of extolling a person with a superior label or reducing a person with an inferior label is cross cultural, not just a matter within Christendom.
The metaphor that I used in my above comment to Joshua of likening gold to goodness means that a person, their character and their behavior could be a manifestation of Godliness, that is the Love of God, in varying amounts of purity. It is possible that in a slice in time a person could have pure Godliness _as 24 Karat gold is pure_ in that the person is loving with this Love in utter sincerity. In another slice in time, the same person could be mostly Loving _as in 18 Karat gold_ or any degree of Loving _say 12 to 14 Karat gold_ or to the level of being not at all Loving. This metaphor helps me _sometimes in the arduous task_ to see the goodness, the Godliness, in a person whether they have a glowing and highly praised character or not.
What I am essentially saying is that there is one Christian and that person is Jesus Christ. There is a strong human quality to view oneself as owning one?s goodness and having favorites and villains. It is enough for me to remember that God alone is the source who can be within me though is other than me providing the wherewithal to act with goodness. ?All good giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no alteration or shadow caused by change? [James 1:17].
Ascribing to and commenting on this concept, I do not expect people and entities to change from labeling themselves Christian. However, I do expect that God can and does raise up the rubble of the earth to manifest his goodness _even without the ?Christian? label. Using the music industry as an example, I would not want the world to be without the ministering of specific Contemporary Christian and Gospel musicians and their music. Neither am I na?ve to the point of believing that these genres are the exclusive modalities of music that God ministers through.
Yes, Jesus said, ?follow me;? still, it seems that Jesus would not have wanted us to exalt ourselves with the titles ?Christian? and ?holy? and ?good? if for one reason alone. And this reason is this: in one Gospel account [Mark 10:18] Jesus said, ?no one is good but God alone.?
Joshua,
Early on just after becoming a Christian, and a college athlete, I was challenged with Colossians 3:17, 23 and now as a guy who continues to walk with Jesus, I continue in this mode of “whatever you do, GO FOR IT!” (my paraphrase).
As a basketball coach, mission trip leader, discipler, and lover of souls, I am continually challenged and challenging others with this plea. I want to live life with no regrets. I want to be in reckless abandonment for all the things of the Kingdom.
Your blog reminds me of Coke’s jingle “It’s the Real Thing”, and Nike’s “Just Do It”. The Kingdom is “real” and I’m going to continue doing the “stuff” as long as I live.
Bless you brother.
Kenny Sacht
Boise, Idaho
Great post! I appreciate what you have said. Having served as a youth pastor at three churches I totally understand the ease of slipping into the box where everything you do, everyone you know and everywhere you go neatly falls into the Christian category. Luckily now a few years later I understand that there is more to being a believer, especially a pastor, then being in that bubble. Thanks.