James 24:7

On Sunday I preached from Ezekiel.  I told the story of Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones.  (Ezekiel 37) I also referred to the text that Jane, my friend at North River, wanted to read. (Ezekiel 36:33 ff.)

I suggested that the point of those related texts was that fallen Israel could neither rescue herself from captivity in Babylon nor raise herself from the dead.  However, the God who was (and is) faithful to his people could.

God brought back the exiles and lifted up the dead because of his promise of covenant fidelity and did so in such a way that all anyone could say was, "The Lord has done this."

I pointed out that this theme of God's intervention runs through scripture.  The 'foolish' cross, the empowering Spirit on Pentecost, the formation of the "new people", the free gift of salvation all come from the hand of God.  The best any of us can say is, "The Lord has done this."

I set that claim against our love affair with technique...the belief that we can isolate the "3 steps" or "the 5 principles" or the "7 ways" to accomplish our heart's desire. 

 I told the good folks at North River about a cynical conversation my brother and I had once about a business idea we had.

The business was called "Church in a Box."

The idea was that you could select some measure of church "success" and isolate the factors that contributed to that church's success.  For example, you could take "rapid growth" as the measure of church success.  Then you could identify the 50 fastest growing churches in America and study them.

You could study their histories, the demographics of their communities, such things as traffic patterns and growth patterns. 

You could study their ministry "offerings" and determine the most successful ministries in these most successful churches. 

You could study their worship service and identify the kinds of music they employed, the structure of their worship services.

You could conduct psychological studies of the pastor and of the staff.  You could identify the demographic make-up of the pastor (pastor...38 year old male, with one blonde wife and 2.2. children); you could isolate the specific personality characteristics of the staff.

You could conduct a "felt-needs" analysis of the membership to find out where the average member of the fastest growing churches itched.  You could see which ministries scratched best.

You could then use all of your data (and those factors listed above only scratch the surface!) to create the "fastest growing church" franchise, open up a consulting firm and be in business.

Church in a box.

I suggested that you could build some impressive churches that way...churches that looked like churches and acted like churches but were, in fact, only mirages.

And...and this is the kicker....you could do this while appealing to God but without ever relying on God for anything.   As long as you had the data and the technique you could do it...McDonaldize the church.

I told you it was a cynical conversation.

So I held up these images: the McDonaldized church or the Army of Israel raised up from dry bones in a desert...a church that in the final analysis is as much about our own technical capabilities or a church that can only be understood with reference to the faithfulness, power and grace of God.

More later...