Gibbs opens this chapter with a critique of the market-driven approaches to church that arose in the last half of the 20th century. He brings up a lot of points on questions that I've been thinking about for years - how does the Church market Jesus? or more importantly, should the Church market Jesus? His answer (and mine) to the second question is - No.
However, this has been the common practice for many churches. Treating Jesus as a product (or idea or person or system or whatever) to be bought and sold is damaging for all sorts of reasons. It makes Jesus out to be someone and something that he never claims to be. And makes us consumers and customers looking for a product that satisfies.
Gibbs points out that a market-driven approach to church turns the gospel into a means for personal fulfillment. Jesus becomes just one more self-help product trying to help us be all that we can be. But the Christian life contains no promises to help us achieve self-actualization. Instead,
Christianity is a going down kind of religion before it is a going up kind of religion.... Unless we are in a position to die to self, we will never be in a position to live for Christ.In other words, the call to discipleship doesn't sell very well. Jesus doesn't promise financial security, or whiter teeth, or to help you lose 20 pounds in a week.
Instead, Gibbs says our churches should be "mission-driven" or gospel driven. Our goal is not to get people to be a part of "our thing." We are not inviting people to join our church, we are inviting them to have a relationship with the resurrected Christ.
[Many churches] have reversed the command of the Great Commission, replacing 'going into all the world,' with 'inviting all the world to come to us.'I have a handful of other thoughts bouncing around about these ideas, but I'll just stop so that I can get this posted. Thanks for your patience.
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