What in the world?  Why write such a headline?  Here are several questions, to begin with, and then some statements to consider:

Questions

1. What is the goal of a church?
2. In Matthew 16, after Peter’s declaration of who Jesus is, Jesus makes a statement: “I will build my church” – What do you think that means? – Is it still happening?
3. Why do churches get founded?
4. What is a disciple?
5. When Jesus gave the great commission in Matthew 28, what did he “commission” the eleven to do?

The Consumer Church

1. Consumer Churches start out innocently enough, usually with creative, attractional people, who have a strong desire to reach.  They develop a menu of products that they hope the community will buy, and hopefully, as a person buys one of the consumer church products, they will get connected to God. 
2. The “Consumer Church” focus initially will be on figuring out their “market” or what the target “customer” is, and gearing their product to attract and sell to that target demographic. 
3. This strong desire to reach can manifest and appear to be an evangelistic gift and can lead a person to believe that they are mainly called to do the initial sales commitment in the transaction of life with a seeker.  It may seem that there is a strategic place for consumer churches in the Kingdom.  Functioning as the gateway for unbelieving or disconnected people to come back to God or to find God for the first time. 
4. Following a “product development cycle,” the church begins to offer its product – a church experience…  The next season should bring success due to the commitment of the starting team, the gifts of the initial leaders and servers, and above all, the grace and mercy of the Father.  This takes place as people begin to be attracted to the offerings and services that the consumer church develops.
5. A culture and “branding” begins to develop that makes a “menu” at that church, kind of like a restaurant.  The “menu” is usually a mix of standard dishes, some direct copies of successful products at other churches.  Other items might be signature dishes that hopefully will differentiate this place from others, and make people want to keep coming back.  All the while, the target demographic and the consumer church’s desire to reach them coalesces a focus and a certain “clarity” of culture.
6. The clarity and settling of the “menu” actually seem to help give vision and missional structure to the church, as it helps the church focus on its products and its customers.  Volunteer engagement and training can now be geared toward replicating the production of the product, the presentation of the product, and the recruitment of more and more people to be involved in the production, presentation, and sales of the product.
7. Successfully attracting “customers” and getting better at offering the product to the target demographic can give the appearance of validation, or lend credence to the processes or the ways, and without knowing it, develop a cultural adherence to the branding and experience that become more important than the ultimate initial goal – making disciples. In fact, discipleship can begin to take on a “socialization” around the products and begins to be focused on creating effective volunteers in the product cycle.  Transformation of character, overcoming sin, or change of central operating worldview may be considered secondary benefits if they happen.
8. Organizations then develop and grow around this menu and experience, much like building a brand for a restaurant, or a social media following, or a start-up company offering the latest fashion or product.  People become fans of ways of doing things and “buy” the product and essentially build an entire church community around the celebration of these outward expressions, products, and offerings.  There usually isn’t any realization that a focus on the product and the development of the product limits the depth at which people can connect with God and with one another. They then miss out on deep, abiding, and transforming relationships.
9. Hunger for meaningful transformation is not usually satisfied by these outward expressions, but, as leadership solidifies in backing the “way” and the “means” because of the initial success, the hungry are forced to either live with their hunger or eventually find their way to another place.
10. Organizational development dynamics actually convince the leadership that it is a good thing when people opt-out if they can’t find what they need, or are asking for more.  “We aren’t that kind of church…” “That doesn’t really fit our brand”  “We don’t really do that here….”  “It seems that God is leading you in a different direction…”  are responses when a hungry person asks for more depth of transformation in a primarily consumer-driven church.  What was once a customer, or potential customer, becomes simply a statistic, replaced by the next hungry potential customer behind them.
11. People who buy into the vision and the processes that have developed become facilitators of the way this organization does things, with a misplaced hope that their commitment and service is accomplishing the goal of making disciples.  When in fact, it is accomplishing the goal of socializing new church members and helping them buy into the “way.”  The unique expression of God’s work in one’s heart is secondary to effectively learning to lead the product development, presentation, and sales cycle.  Leadership development becomes important, and many consumer churches focus heavily on training tracks that include building leaders.  But leaders in this type of organization are more product managers, project managers, marketing managers, and volunteer engagement managers.  There are lots of parallels to work with, and people who function well in business are actually drawn to the similarities of focus, development cycles, goals, and metrics.
12. People can begin to feel a bit more like they are not very individually important, except in the context of how they fit into the production cycle.  People can begin to think maybe they are just a cog in a large machine.  In some ways, this is true, as a successful consumer church will cycle through whoever comes and goes.  Happily gaining new cogs and workers who are attracted to the menu and offerings, with the system humming and plugging them in.  All the while, the cogs that drop out, while missed and or painful, are simply replaced with new fresh cogs.
13. God’s mercy allows a level of connected community to be present, and people who are intentional can stay within these organizations and make disciples and have meaningful, transformational relationships.  But these people are working in cross purposes to the organization and can be forever doomed to be outliers, rebels, and eventually will be frustrated and move on.
14. What is left, is a shell of customers, and sellers.  Sellers selling a product to the customers and “discipling” them to become sellers themselves.  Never understanding that the real, powerful transformation that the Lord desires is still ahead.
15. Moments of transformation do happen.  God is still in the transformation business.  These glimpses of His mercy and redeeming power are like flowers springing up in the desert.  Unfortunately, and mysterious to my understanding, is that these transformations end up justifying the process and lending credibility to the consumer church.  I don’t understand God’s strategy here, except to say that the work of the Spirit happens everywhere, and fruit springs from abiding vines, no matter where it is. 
16. Eventually, consumer trends shift, and the church either adapts new selling techniques or menu options or dies out as surely as any product that doesn’t keep developing to stay relevant and interesting.
17. Ultimately, the way in is the way on.  When people “buy” a product that is offered, they are taught that this is the definition of church and discipleship.  So – they are potentially doomed to be consumers, always looking for a place that sells better products.  They don’t know the true joy of connected, transforming, God-visioned discipleship that breaks them out of their patterns of behavior and character shortages.  Those kinds of things are not on the menu.

Conclusions

The question is not how do we dismantle and blow up and burn down a consumer church?  I think the question is, how do we help encourage leaders and followers of consumer churches that there is more available.  Then, as they see that there is more available, help them re-shape their well-oiled processes to allow for more?  Maybe there is no way, and allowing a consumer church to eventually die out and lose its customers is the best way, while hoping to collect those who have fallen through the cracks.  This is still a burning question. 

I believe that the strength of a church is going to be sorely tested in the months and years to come.  There are going to be existential crises that are either going to drive people toward God, or toward other gods.  The Church can begin to demonstrate that real transformation and hope lies in the connected relational network, where one can find grace, hope, and love.  The difference that needs to be demonstrated is real, life-giving, changed character, and ability to handle difficulty in a new way.  When the storms come, and COVID-19 was just a little one…. People are going to try shallow and market-driven options for a brief season…  But when they realize there is no real power behind that option, they will opt out – maybe for eternity.  We as The Church must seek the Lord, and find a way to build transformative, connected, loving communities that actually change people’s lives in the power of the Spirit.  Then, and only then can we together face the storms ahead.

If the Lord is the one building HIS CHURCH – and we all must ask ourselves if we believe that to be true, then how do we more effectively encourage one another to gain our insight from Him? How do we get on to His plan for the church? Why does He allow us to run with an initial leading, and end up with a product that we’ve made, all the while taking people with us? How can we build in to a church, intentional frameworks that prevent us from veering away from total dependence on Him and leadership of the Spirit?

• Time to pray. – Come Lord Jesus, and build YOUR CHURCH!