Darryl's Blog
The Drew Marshall "We'll pay you to go to church" experiment
I'm finding this fascinating. Canadian Christian radio host Drew Marshall has hired two non-Christians to visit five churches and report on their experiences.
I really didn't like the idea at first. To me it seemed like hiring two vegans to go out and rate five steakhouses.
Maybe I was wrong. So far they've visited four churches. I don't agree with everything they've written, of course, but they've made some very perceptive observations.
For instance, they visited one of the fastest growing churches in the Greater Toronto Area that is known as a "the church for people who aren't into church" - in other words, a church for people like these two hired visitors. I'm impressed by the quality of teaching at this church, and I have many friends who attend and some who work on staff.
Were they impressed? Listen to some of their comments. One wrote:
Why should the institution be rich, and the congregation not? If you really believe you should be living the ascetic life led by Christ and his apostles, why aren’t you doing it? If money and possessions aren’t important, why aren’t you meeting to discuss the meaning of Christ’s ideas and life in the local park? Notwithstanding the need to broadcast to your rather large congregation, and obviously you’d have to come up with a solution during the winter months, but really: why the son et lumiere? I found the medium more than a bit out of whack with the message.
Which brings me to another point: all that razzmatazz kind of unsettles me. We live in a culture where distraction is often misdirection - like a magician who gets you to look at his left hand while he’s disappearing something with his right. I found myself wondering why a group that liked its preacher so straightforward felt most at home in a medium of flashing lights and sound. Maybe it’s a generational thing - 30-45s are mostly Gen Xers, after all. But I still felt disconcerted.
And the other:
I had a little problem with their arguments involving material goods and our “media saturated culture” as they make their Sunday services available on your 80Gb video ipod.
It's worth reflecting on some of the things that got in the way of connecting in this church that is built for people like them. Not just reflecting on what this says about this one church, but to many of us as well.
And it's worth thinking about why they've finally found a church they seem to appreciate. The church is Sanctuary, pastored by Greg Paul, author of God in the Alley. The thing that you need to know about Greg is that he is as theologically orthodox as anyone I know. He didn't appeal to these non-Christians because he's abandoned theological moorings or because he doesn't stand for anything. Quite the opposite.
Listen to some of the comments:
My fear had left me, there was a calm sense of wonder now. We met the pastor first, he was wearing an eccentric yellow Hawaiian shirt with the usual brightly colored flowers, he spoke very calmly in a quiet voice that exuded a wisdom only achieved through many years of heart wrenching reality. He introduced us to a fellow who looked like he had seen a hard time too many, as it turns out he used to be homeless and had it not been for the Sanctuary who knows where he would be. I could tell then and there we had found what this experiment was set out to accomplish, a church that saw past the money, power and the heighten sense of moral superiority that we have grown accustomed to...
This place gets it, there was no collection plate that I ever saw and what they gave back to the community could not be measured. There isn’t enough good things to say about this place.
Amidst all the pomp and circumstance of the Christian world out there, here lies a simple, honest place that really means it.
Even the message - "He talked about the need for Christians to accept that it was an either-or proposition - if you accept that Christ is the Son of God, you must 'die to everything else'" - really connected.
Some are complaining that it's unfair because this church was tipped off before they came. But it's the only church so far in which Drew and his friends would be obvious, and they didn't change a thing. This is Sanctuary every single week.
This is the only Church where the majority of time, finances and energy is NOT spent on the Sunday service. At Sanctuary, it actually would have been unfair to only score them on their Sunday service, the smallest part of what they do.
I'll be thinking about this for a while.
We spend a lot of time making Sunday mornings what they are, and focusing on the quality of the teaching and the music. But the church that has best embodied and communicated the gospel so far is not slick and would not get noticed for its attendance records. It's not going multisite and pastors don't drool over what they're doing.
There's a lot to think about as I read the reports of Drew and his friends visiting these churches. Reminds me a little of the letters to the churches in Revelation.
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These are very interesting comments and worth having a listen to. But I fear that we can do with them exactly what we criticize others for: find out what they want and give it to them. The fact that they want something a little more close to the truth doesn't change the fact that we are listening to non christian people to tell us how to worship. Again, I think it would be wrong to completely ignore their comments whether positive or negative. But let us not become seeker sensitive simply because this time we happen to like what the "seekers" (more like paid informants)are saying.
Here's a novel idea. Let's find out what God wants and seek to do it in our worship and service, regardless of what traditions need to be dumped, what needs to be added, how compromising or uncompromising it looks and regardless of what non believers think about it.
Not much of a listener are you Ken?
Go read all of Hoof Hearted, then come back and whine.
Read Taylor and Sabrina's bios, then come back and whine.
Hoof Hearted isn't about people telling you how to worship or what traditions to keep or what you think you are being 'told' to compromise.
Great insight Ken. I appreciated your comment - very fair and balanced. Thanks.
Every time I've taken a nonchristian friend to a seeker-driven church they see right through it. I've found it never works the way they want it to work. Most thinking people see through the hype, entertainment and consumerism of the culture they're embroiled in and if they bother to go to church they're looking for something transcendent.
Bene
I'll whine, you provide the cheese.
Bene:
I just think Ken knows us pastors well. It's not that the bloggers at Hoof Hearted told us to find out what they want and then give it to them, but we pastors are always chasing after "what works". If anything this should remind us to chase after what's right more than what works.
Darryl, I hope you are not suggesting that what these bloggers are saying about which churches are doing things right is accurate. It might be right in their eyes but that would not make it so.
Maybe they should have been asked to evaluate the churches on how they believe God is being glorified. But of course that wouldn't make sense either, because as unbelievers who reject the truth, they do not have spiritual discernment.
I have been to 2 of those churches and if that is the most important question - is God being glorified - there could be an interesting discussion about that. That is the most important question isn't it? Is God being glorified?
When you consider your church or Ken considers his church, is that not the number one thing you have to ask yourself and ask God to help you with, in leading your people that it would all be to His glory?
George:
A few thoughts.
First, if my tag line was "a church for people who aren't into church," then yes, I'd have to really think about what these bloggers observed.
Second, no, I don't think anyone is saying that our goal should be to please visiting bloggers. However, I think they made some perceptive observations that are worth thinking about.
Finally, I agree that glorifying God is our goal. However, I would guess that all four churches visited so far would state that this is their primary goal. We still have to get more specific than that.
I'm looking forward to the rest of the reports. I hope it stirs some good biblical reflection as we weigh what they experience.
Oh excellent Ken. I see you caught my rhetorical backhand, I don't think you are whining, I wanted your attention and used a verbal two by four.
I wanted to get your attention because I have a couple of questions.
1. Did you read the full blog?
2. Would you help me understand:
a) who are you speaking to?
b) Who is the 'we' you are referencing Kemosabe:^)
"they want something a little more close to the truth doesn't change the fact that we are listening to non christian people to tell us how to worship"
c) Who are you referencing in the them/us?
Why do you feel/think the blog, Drew, Taylor or Sabrina are telling you how to worship?
Darryl, it is very decent of you to speak for Ken, I'd like Ken to speak for himself...have some cheese.
Bene:
Help me understand - did Ken's comments anger you? I'm just trying to figure out the need for a "verbal two-by-four."
Bene,
Sorry to take so long to get back to you. In answer to your questions:
1)No. All I read was Darryl's quote.
2)I am speaking to anyone who is tired of seeker sensitive type stuff. Anyone who wants something more genuine. "we" are those who tire of the same old same old. My remarks were a warning to "us" who want to be genuine. "We" can see how seeker sensitive types are getting it wrong when they aim at upper middle class white upwardly mobile people. But if we see that some non christians want help for the poor, no talk about money, preaching an uncompromising Gospel,... we can begin to think that NOW it is OK to seek to please them. But it isn't. Our call is to please God, even when the masses want the right things. Let's not become seeker sensitive just because someone happens to want something good for a change.
I do not think Drew et.al are trying to tell me how to worship. All we do as believers is worship. We do not live lives of worship to please people. We "make it our goal to please Him". (II Cor. 5:9) That is all I was saying in the whole thing. See I Thess. 2:1-6.
Hope this answers your questions. Nice meeting you. BTW - I am on a cheese restricted diet right now.
Thank you Ken, that was a clear response, I appreciate your promptness.
I wasn't angry, I was definitely frustrated because to me you came across as defensive and I couldn't understand why. Darryl wrote a long careful post and I saw just another flip dismissal.
I was frustrated a tone of us/them/either, not hearing both/and.
I didn't see Darryl's post as defensive, or him seeing the promo as an attack against the churches or pastors.
I could have swallowed my frustration. I thought you were what bloggers call a hit and run commenter.
Hit and runs don't usually to come back to explain - they just want to whine, attack or demean or troll.
I wanted you to respond.
I wanted to understand where you were coming from, with no desire to anger or embarrass you, just bait you to come back and clarify.:^)
Hit and runs don't usually click on links, read the material offered by the blogger.
Hit and runs often come back to lurk, tickled they get people riled up.
All bloggers get hit and runs,
I didn't get the impression you'd taken time to read the rest of Hoof Hearted. (Thanks for your honesty about that!)
This is a promo stunt by Marshall, he is responsible to boost his ratings same as any radio announcer or talk show host.
It would be interesting to see that stations demographics and numbers.
Like Darryl I was skeptical and uncomfortable until I began to read. Hoof Hearted has turned out to be an informative and moving. Blunt honesty can be a good thing, and Marshall is a master.
Whether Marshalls staff or a promo company came up with the idea, the station has taken a lot of flack from hyper sensitive rage mode defensive churched listeners who don't bother to 'listen' to the whole blog. Sad.
I agree with what Darryl said: "Reminds me a little of the letters to the churches in Revelation."
I guess I am struggling to understand why so many people have responded to this promo with hostility, and/or why pastors would think this is about them or a guilt trip.
"...we are listening to non christian people to tell us how to worship"
I understood that statement as you dismissing the blog.
"Let's find out what God wants and seek to do it in our worship and service..."
I 'heard' these young people are just unbelieving bloggers,icky, ignorant little 'not us' attention seeking critics.
I felt you dismissed this participants with your joke; but why wouldn't you if you felt attacked or whacked by a BD rhetorical two by four?:^)
I thought not even using their names was degrading, and I took that as a clue you hadn't read the blog.
I think Hoof Hearted is honest, participatory and well worth a full read, Sabrina and Taylor have taken their responsibilities seriously.
I can appreciate you are frustrated with the seeker sensitive model, thank you taking time to clarify.
No one needs you to enjoy Hoof Hearted, I needed to understand who you were speaking to and what you were trying to say.
"My remarks were a warning to "us" who want to be genuine."
Okay. I get that. Trying to be genuine doesn't make sense.
I read two bright, engaging 20 somethings who won a contest, and who are certainly earning the money they are being paid.
It is such a huge deal to a listener when they 'win' a broadcast contest (trust me on that one!) they'll share this experience with their grand-kids.
Given how gracious and attentive Drew Marshall's family has been with Sabrina and Taylor, one thing I hadn't thought of during the first weeks of the promo is that it may be a unique opportunity for the Holy Spirit to work in their lives.
Darryl, forgive me for reacting to a false assumption Ken was just another cranky, critical hit and run commenter.
Thanks Ken.
To show I am responding in good faith, both Taylor's and Sabrina's entries on Toronto Airport Church concerns me.
That fear is real and necessary, the TAC practises Hindu and Sufi practices such as yogic kundalini arousal. (see Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs) Calling the experiential practise Holy Spirit driven is a lie and participants are deluded.
That fear the two experienced is God given. I wish they hadn't felt the need to stick it out. Atleast they didn't permit people to touch them.
We would be wise to pray for Sabrina, Taylor and Drew.
Bene:
Thanks for explaining. It makes a bit more sense now.
Ken is no hit and run commenter. He's not only a friend but he makes the list of people I would want to have as my pastor.
As for the Airport - I won't get into that right now.
I can't wait to hear the interview with Sabrina and Taylor when they're finished their visits.
"We would be wise to pray for Sabrina, Taylor and Drew."
That's the best advice I've heard yet. I read some of the comments on that blog and I think there was only one guy, and he was all the way from New Zealand, who really cared to tell them the truth about why it is that Christians share their faith. It comes down to what is truth.
Just consider now, after all that Taylor and Sabrina will hear about the Gospel, (lets hope they will have heard it) how much greater their responsibility to respond will be. They will be without excuse. Should they continue to refuse to believe the truth about Jesus Christ, they will one day stand before Him and bow their knee, but then it will be too late.
Broad is the road that leads to destruction and many are on it, narrow is the road that leads to life and only a few find it. Let's pray that Sabrina and Taylor find it through this experience. Good advice BD.