Don't Give 'em What They Want
Image © greek0129 | Flickr | Used under Creative Commons license.In the West, it’s hard to grow a church without catering to people’s wants and felt needs. We preach super practical sermon series, we offer small groups that are designed to appeal to individual interests, and we serve gourmet coffee in the narthex. (That’s the lobby for those of you who don’t know churchspeak, or your congregation meets at the neighborhood cineplex.)
We try our hardest to stay on top of church trends so we don’t lose market share in our community to the local megachurch and its charismatic pastor. The best way to get people to show up is to give them what they want, right?
Then there are the churches that do the complete opposite. These churches are stuck in the 1950’s, and it’s usually for one of two reasons—either they don’t get that times and methods have changed, or they’re intentionally bucking the perceived consumerism trend by protecting their traditions. Some of these congregations even seem to wear this elitist attitude as a badge of honor. (“We don’t care if we grow. We like being small!”)
“People may say they want to worship with a certain style of music, but what they need is a little culture and more theological depth in their music.”
“People may say they like topical preaching and sermon series, but preaching from the lectionary is what’s best for them!”
“People may say they want more home group Bible study options, but what will happen to Sunday school if we do that?”
“People may say they want to use the DVD’s from Beth Moore for their study group, but they obviously don’t understand that our denomination doesn’t agree with all of her theology.”
What we have here are the classic “give them what they want” and “give them what they need” philosophies. Burgers and fries vs. Brussels sprouts.
Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer, had an interesting opinion about giving consumers what they want. He didn’t let that sort of thinking drive him because he assumed that consumers either didn’t know what they really wanted, or he thought that by the time he had figured out how to give it to them, they would have moved on to wanting something else anyway.
People who run businesses giving consumers what they want spend their entire careers being reactive instead of proactive.
Instead of giving people what they already wanted, Jobs instead showed them what was possible. Then he convinced them that they wanted it.
When news of the first generation iPhone broke, I couldn’t wrap my mind around it. I thought my Blackberry was the best thing since sliced bread, and I couldn’t imagine a touchscreen phone without a physical keyboard. I figured it would be an expensive toy purchased only by the most loyal Apple fans.
At least I was right about the expensive part.
Now I own an Android, but I can’t deny that the iPhone is the major reason for my phone’s existence. I would have never even wanted a touchscreen smartphone if I hadn’t seen the iPhone in action. Now my new phone helps me to be much more productive than my old phone ever did. And it’s a lot more fun to use.
Sorry, Blackberry.
There’s a lesson here for the church. Instead of trying so hard to give people what they think they want, or what we think they need, maybe we should focus more on showing them what’s possible. And we should do that with as much excellence and creativity as we can muster.
What if we stretched ourselves musically, theologically, intellectually, spiritually, and homiletically? Instead of aiming for the lowest common denominator, suppose we pushed the limits of our thinking and did church in a way that didn’t cater to current wants or perceived needs, but in the end, actually ended up being what people both wanted and needed?
Shane Raynor is an editor and blogger at Ministry Matters.
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My main point was that churches need to figure out how to avoid both doing things "the way we've always done it" and implementing "megachurch in a box" using someone else's blueprints.
I feel like if I were able to list ways to figure out what people want before they want it, I'd just be adding more blueprints to follow.
But you may be right. Perhaps a follow-up post is in order...
Thanks for the comment.
Shane
People are consumers. That is one thing that I got out of it. When the sheep are done munching(Bill Easum term), they will move on to eat something else. They will eat and eat and eat. Rarely looking up to even see what's happening around them. When they don't get what they want to eat, they just move on. In many cases, they have also become so appeased by pastors giving what they want and think they need, that church is nothing more than something that they consume. (but you get all that)
The Steve Jobs model is magnificent! It causes me to think in terms of casting the vision to people about what can be if we were to dream big. If we truly embodied the Acts 2 church and if we really were a priesthood of all believers. . . . .and on and on. . . .Thank God for dreamers like Steve Jobs. May we all dream so big for the kingdom.
America is less of a Christian nation and more of an “emergent church” nation with the emphasis not on Christ as Christ, per se, but on Christ as an example of how to live. As such, He could easily be replaced by Gandhi or Martin Luther King or even Che Guevara in many people’s minds and they wouldn’t miss a beat. Over 500 years after the Copernican Revolution we have succeeded in putting Man back at the center of the universe but have left very little room for the Creator.
It’s hard to say which came first: the institutional Christian or the institutional church, but they feed off each other. Our nation is defined by the a la carte Christian who seeks comfort and affirmation and by the institutional pastorate which gives it to them in a doctrine-lite message meant to offend as few as possible; by prosperity preachers whose message is that a good life is one of material success and that the size of one's bank account is a reflection of your closeness to God; pastors who are afraid to stand up for the Word out of fear of offending their "mega-congregations" and thereby reducing their own "closeness to God," aka their cash flow. We have diminished and marginalized God and His principles in order to create a belief system that is about us, driven on by daytime talk show hosts who peddle books by the latest guru who pad their bank accounts by adding leaven to our already bloated sense of self-worth.
We are too seeker friendly and not Christ-centered nearly enough. We have more pastors concerned about winning congregants for themselves than we have those who are driven by a passion to bring people to God. Rather than being a corporate body that takes the Word to society, we are a Society of Individuals which infuses our own priorities into our religion.
Take worship as an example. To move the group beyond the foundation of the 70s, I've instituted a monthly worship night to teach by example what contemporary worship is and how it fits on my life.
Great post. Encouraging that I'm not the only thinking these things.