Churchianity vs. Christianity

Churchianity vs. Christianity

I’ve been to some churches over the past few years – mostly due to relocating or visiting a friend’s church.  I’ve been to Presbyterian, Baptist, Pentecostal, and non-denominational churches.  Recently, a friend of mine was talking to me about her experience as a worship leader for quite some time at a non-denominational church.  It took her 4 years to realize that her church was not really living up to the original function of the Church in Acts.  She briefly mentioned that the church would go on annual missions trip and seldom participate in some other outward reach programs.  But for the most part, she was not content with this version of a church, which hides behind its own doors (except for a few times throughout the year).  Another interesting piece of information is that this church would outcast those that left or disagreed with some aspect of the organization as if this church were the only part of the body that had it right, and thereby creating its own “kingdom” (or bubble).

What stuck with me the most from the talk was that she believe that many of these non-denominational emergent churches were practicing Churchianity rather than Christianity.  Reflecting on my past church experiences, I realized how true this was.  Denominations tend to have more outward reach programs through the help of its denominational affiliations with non-profit organizations and such, probably due to their sheer size.  As for non-denominations, first, I’ll tell you why I think this inevitably occurs within this breed of churches.  Then in a future post, I’ll tell you why it is Churchianity and not Christianity. DISCLAIMER: I am speaking generally, not all non-denominational churches are Churchians rather than Christians.  This difference occurs most likely due to sufficient funding, or a lack of caring about funding…as you will see.

I say inevitably occurs because the organizational design of non-denominational churches is set up so that the incentives of the leader/owner at a church are not aligned with that of what a business needs to survive: profits.  Non-denominations do not receive stipends from the parent denomination (such as a Baptist Church), since they do not have a parent denomination.  Moreover, most non-denominations are not funded properly either because there is no endowment which supplies a sustainable cash flow in perpetuity or because there are not enough people to supply sufficient funding (non-denominations are not affiliated, so many people may feel their is no legitimacy to these churches), This lack of funding is the misalignment of incentives.  Non-denominations need a cash flow to survive, yet they are not getting it.  So like any other business owner, the product or service needs to change so that they can attract more “customers”, which will hopefully supply the business with a sustained cash flow.

So what do these non-denominations do?  Like any other business, they need to target their product or service toward  a core audience so that they can be very efficient with a target audience then very inefficient with a broad audience – this is when the marketing comes in.  So you begin to see services that are marketed mostly toward a younger audience through the pop-worship rock, lights, sound, lasers, etc.  They target their messages toward that demographic.  They even go so far as to limit who can go to certain services, as if the Church of Acts had such segregation…(or as if the kingdom is segregated).  Granted, some pastors actually have a genuine heart to reach a certain sociographic and don’t change their service to become more efficient and receive better funding.  Even in this case, as you will see, this is still leading to a toxic view of what Christianity is…so even these pastors are not blameless (1 Timothy 3).

Through this marketing clutter, caused by targeting a certain sociographic, the target audience becomes manipulated into Christianity: the topical message approach does not let people respond to all possible convictions, the deeper truths of Christianity are usually not spoken about so those that have accepted God usually haven’t weighed the cost of accepting Christ (Matt 21:44), the modern worship that makes God the object of a sappy love song distorts the image of God, God’s divine order is not upheld which means that there is no divine presence at the gatherings (1 Cor 11:10).  Therefore, what is felt is hype and emotion which is created through the marketing and is being confused with “God”; the whole message of the Bible gets lost.

As I said earlier, the saddest part is that some that run such services genuinely have good hearts.  But unfortunately, truth within your heart is different than acting on that truth (Galatians 5:24-25).  They do not realize the toxicity of topical messages;  They do not realize that there is no divine presence when God’s divine order is not upheld, therefore, they are confusing hype and emotion with truth;  They do not realize that most modern worship displays God as your boyfriend/girlfriend;  They do not realize that the little cash flow they receive is most likely a coincidence due to strategic marketing than a blessing due to preaching truth and going out into the world; Etc. (and the list continues).

Satan twisted scripture to try to deceive Christ; how much more would he do it for us that are not Christ?  If only we could go back to the Church of Acts.  The Church of Acts was designed by the Gospel according to Jesus, who taught the disciples while on Earth with him.  Even 2000 years ago, Christ said in Luke 10:2 “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”  The same is true today.  Why are churches still creating their own kingdoms, dismissing those that leave, and not going into the world often?

The message you receive at a church should not be your primary food, nor the worship your only time of worship.  Church supplements what we lack individually.  Individually, God gives me my daily bread through reading and I receive the joy of God through worshiping.  Individually, I cannot have fellowship with myself – this is why I need church.  Individually, I will confess that I am weak and rely upon others’ strength to go out into the world as a group to help the needy – this is why I need church.

Unfortunately, the message and worship are only times that many “Christians” actually receive or praise throughout their week.  This is why topical messages should not be and why worship should be taken seriously.  Sanctification comes by understanding more about God through His word.  Topical messages do not reveal the deeper truths of God (such as sanctification!) because most of His wisdom is intertwined throughout many verses and is revealed by Him through conviction, not by topics.  Furthermore, a pastor speaking on a topic opens up the congregation to point their finger at the pastor.  For instance, if a pastor speaks about sacrificing money spent on yourself and I see him eating at a restaurant or going to the movies, he clearly hasn’t avoided the presence of evil, the blamelessness that he should uphold, and the message he preaches to his congregation!

The design of the Church of Acts should not be spoken of briefly, so please check out what it looked like in this post: The Church of Acts.

-Mark

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