The Pyramid With No Product

Have you ever been introduced to a multi-level marketing organization where the product was basically irrelevant because the organization existed primarily to recruit new people?

It occurred to me today that Church with no real understanding of the Gospel is exactly like that.  I have been researching churches online recently, and, the vast majority of them are very excited about recruiting others to join them, and then encouraging the new people to find more people, who will then find more people, who will…well, you get the idea.

What’s missing is the “product”, or, in this case, the Good News; the very reason why Church actually exists.  There is a vague reference to something like ‘the life-changing love of Jesus’, an inference that by joining you will become a better person; and then, week after week there are sermons with instructions regarding how to be that better person accompanied by the general expectation that, after hearing the instructions, you will become that better person; unless there is something wrong with you, and it then becomes obvious you don’t really belong in the organization.

I’ve watched videos poignantly depicting the unreached masses in our nation and around the world.  There is barely a mention of Christ, only an invitation to join this busy, happy group, followed by images of members having fun and working together.

I’ve listened to countless worship bands emotionally singing of their desire to serve God and give their all.  I’ve seen people, with tears streaming down their faces, promising that, this time, they will truly surrender; this time they really mean it.

Because, for many years, I was a part of churches like that, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that from the leadership to the people in the seats, there is a general sense that Church has to do with the fact that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, but the most important thing is our Christian Living, our response to that historical fact. And, the required response is to both be a better person and to tell others so that they too will be better people and will tell others: Multi-level marketing with “you must be and will be a better person because Jesus died for you” as the product.

So, what’s wrong with that? Shouldn’t we all strive to become better people? Sure! There’s nothing wrong with becoming a more pleasant contributing member of society; but, to be honest, there are many non-Christian motivational speakers who are actually more effective at generating behavior modification, and in a more professional manner, than most churches. And, the non-Christians who have experienced behavior change may actually be more fun to be around than the churchgoers, because their changes were not required, but desired, and come with much less baggage.

The real message of the Church is not that we need to be tweaked; it’s that we need to be resurrected.  We’re not sick and in need of medicine, we are dead.  We don’t need a doctor, we need a Savior.  The real message of the Church is that what God told Adam and Eve in Genesis 2:17, about eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, was true: “for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”   When our first parents ate from that tree, we all died.  But, in 1 Corinthians 15:22 Paul tells us, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.”  Then in Colossians 2:13-14 he says, “When you were dead in your sins…, God made you alive with Christ.  He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.”  And finally, Hebrews 10:14 says, “For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.”

We were dead, and through Christ God made us alive and canceled our debt, forever perfecting us and making us holy and acceptable in his sight.  None of that was our doing.  It was done for us and to us by God through his son.  It was not earned or deserved, and it can never be repaid.  It is God’s gift.  That message is the unique offering of the Church.

People don’t need the promise of a nicer, busier you and me.  They are starving for a genuine means of shame removal; a message of forgiveness and reconciliation regardless of what they have done; the knowledge that they are completely and irrevocably loved because of and in spite of, just as they are, with no reservations.  This is as true of people inside the church as of those outside. We all need to be reassured every day that God’s grace is real and is for us.

If that is not the message your church is proclaiming, beware, you’re being sold a program with no product and one day that pyramid is going to fall.