Church for Members or Members for the Church?
Over at BCC there was a great discussion on the growth of the church. One comment that struck me was one by Hellmut discussing how other churches provide more for their members. As he put it,
People don’t mind to invest as long as there is a return. People are willing to sacrifice for a cause. Looking at the costs of a decision is meaningless unless one includes benefits.
The reason why converts do not remain Mormons is that it is not worthwhile. Rather than suggesting that Mormons have to be more virtuous than other religious people, it is more useful to ask why our organization is unable to meet people’s needs.
It’s an interesting question, especially when one asks, “what counts as benefits?” It’s interesting that Hellmut and others seem to critique the Church in terms of being too corporate whereas other Churches seem to me to be more corporate in a certain sense. That is they see themselves primarily as providing benefits, often secular, to their customers. It’s fundamentally a customer model. And new services are provided to get more customers.
Thus we see the fast growing churches offering daycare services, having entertaining rock-concert like performances in giant stadiums, even stores in the churches. I recognize I’m biased and of course all churches don’t do this. But it seems what is attractive about these churches to many people is primarily providing secular services. They have better psychological and therapeutic counseling than we do. (Yes, I know there are LDS family services, but it’s really not the same thing - especially outside of Utah) They have full time employees doing this so that the pastor is typically available 24-7. Bishops simply can’t compete.
Now there’s nothing wrong with providing these services. But I halfway wonder if it is the place of the church to do it. Yes, we have welfare and we do have some services, albeit far more limited. (IMO)
But look at the focus in our church, for better or worse. Lessons aren’t primarily seen in terms of how educational or entertaining they are for the audience. Rather we see them primarily as service opportunities for the teacher. We go out of our way to make sure people have callings. Yes most people don’t do that great a job. There’s no doubt that for the vast majority a trained professional would do vastly better. If we got rid of our lay ministry and hired a few people our church services would be much more enjoyable. But is that the point?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not setting up a false dichotomy between service to and service from members. But I think the primary focus of Church is getting us involved in service and building a community in that sense. From what I’ve read of other popular churches the focus in on building a community by providing shared services to that community. Now this is a blurry distinction. And I’m sure people will come up and present examples of a lot of volunteer work in other churches. I’m intentionally painting with broad strokes to get the general picture rather than the details.
So is this difference of focus a bad thing? I don’t think so.
Just to add my point is that Church is seen primarily as providing a structure for service with a focus not on the service but on the server and that facilitation. While I think we can do more to provide better service, fundamentally if that were our focus there are far more efficient ways of doing it. But the point isn’t the service its the opportunity.
Put an other way, the Church doesn’t see itself primarily in the business of providing services to its members. Rather it sees itself primarily as providing structures for service for fairly self-motivated people.
Ought it do that? I don’t know. I’d say that Churches ought not be setting themselves up as quasi-government service environments. But then once upon a time the Church was the government as ideal. Of course that was before governments were seen as providing services like day care, health insurance, and so forth.
Hmmmm, I would think that the peace and serenity, as well as the Spirit, that come from following the Savior would be sufficient to provide for the real needs every human being needs. The Savior taught that His gospel would satiate all thirst and fill all desire for the meat for which the soul hungers. All the rest of that stuff (rock concerts at churches, etc.) is fluff and like bad movie sequels that try to play up the supposed rush one gets from the original. But like all addictions, you need more to satisfy at the same amount.
It is hard to quantify the satisfaction that comes from the Gospel, when followed completely, because life is too complicated with too many variables for us to quantify. I don’t feel a huge rush of the Spirit when I listen to General Conference; I feel that small confirmation in my heart that it is wisdom I hear. I realize that that is all I need.
Yes.
Well, there are benefits and then there might be benefits.
My non-LDS Lutheran mother-in-law, who was an invalid the last two years of her life, received help from her female friends from her church, but the pastor never came to her home during that time. When she passed away we had to pay him and the church for the use of the facilities in order to hold a memorial service. We didn’t have to pay the organist because I played for the service and I also provided an LDS soloist (our RS Pres) who did not ask for payment.
The senior pastor, BTW, gets paid $96,000 a year. He also has an assistnat full-time pastor, and the church is in the process of hiring a third pastor to work with the youth. Yes, our bishops can’t compete with the 24/7 requirements, but at least our church has Home Teachers who can act in the bishop’s behalf and hopefully visit you each month and assist you when needed.
If anyone really repents of their sins and is worthy of the guidance of the Holy Ghost they won’t leave the church and the Church will thrive. The problem is that we don’t really ask people to REPENT and be baptized.
You could open a whole topic on consciousness of sin and the desire to be free from it. I don’t that many people have it and when they do they are labelled as sick.
The answer to the question is we serve the church. The church is the body of Christ and we serve him.
What good do these other focuses really do when they have no idea how to be Bishops, EQ Presidents, HPGL’s, Auxiliary leaders, SPs, HCers, GAs, Prophets, Apostles, Seers and Revelators? If I am a Bishop in the next life and these guys come to me with all this experience, what am I going to do with them in terms of church leadership when they have no idea how this church operates, or how Christ’s church operates? they won’t be able to officiate in the temples because they just won’t know how, and in fact, because their understanding of gospel doctines will be very skewed and limited, and that they mostly fought against this truth, what are we going to do with them if they want work in the kingdom? I guess we can make them primary teachers to start with or greeters, but I have no idea what i could do with them. I am betting that all their pastoral and philosophies of men mingled with scripture will have little or no value in terms of getting the real work done because we will have to spend so much time training them as new members, and that all hinges on whether they even want any part of our church and it’s teaching, that could be way too humiliating for them and too much work for us. Sure they are good people, but wit little or no experience in running a church based upon God’s ways and not our own ways, sorry can’t hire them, they have little or no experience.
Not sure I even care if they get paid to be fulltime ministers and pastors, do they pay tithes and offerings on that income, or do they run a tithing and offerings fund with altruistic purposes involved? If they don’t, how could they even be financial clerks in our church?
Couldn’t have them teaching Gospel Doctrine class because there are too many Gods for them to consider and they could very readily teach false doctrines. Blinded by the sophistries of men!
Could they even manage holding Priesthood keys? It would be an incredible learning curve, but if they wanted to try, then we might be able to strike a deal to have them work, and if they felt to repent and change their thinking, then perhaps we could trust them to follow the Spirit, and then we have what qualifies one for the work in the kingdom, and they could be more than just called, they could be chosen! (D&C121:34-46)
GeorgeD,
I agree, the minute you repent of your implied self-righteousness and learn to love others because of what they can become, rather than condemn them out of hand, the Church will undoubtedly be better off. Personally, I aspire to be totally SICK with Christlike love, However, I am just not there yet. So I guess I will just have to live with and tolerate all these imperfect “saints” so called around me as they justify their own sins and shortcomings by showing forth an increase of love. It really is a horrible, nasty trick and I resent them for it.
Isn’t immortality and eternal life the real point?
Doc, “Self righteous” is an epithet thrown about by the self righteous don’t you think? The liberal wing of the church does this quite frequently because they are the thoughtful, intelligent members who have a higher vision.
I just wonder how successful these megachurches will be 20 years down the road. I already know of several megachurhces that were around during my mission in the early 90s that have gone bankrupt. There was an initial surge in membership, but then the glitz and glam of rock concerts and daycare wore away and people seemed to realize there was no real spirituality in it.
But I have no idea what the overall stats are, or if my experiences are at all typical. Having read “The Churching of America” my guess is they (megachurhces with rock concerts and daycare) won’t last.
People who come to be entertained or for the services will leave whenever another church provides more entertainment or more services. People who come to feel the Spirit, do the will of the Lord, follow the commandments and serve others will stay for good.
I sometimes grow tired of the ‘What is in it for me?’ mentality regarding the church. Have we not been given much as it is? Is it not selfish to wonder what church does for me?
Jesus of Nazareth observed on one occasion that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. The same is true in regard to the church. The church is a vehicle, and a facilitator. It provides a channel through which to receive ordinances, as well as to learn, to serve others, etc. I believe it is important to understand this relationship. I fear that many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints become confused, and begin to think that they are the tools of the church, rather than the church being the tool of its members. Thinking that individuals exist to serve the church (rather than the other way around) is the sort of thing that leads to hundreds of people drinking cyanide-laced kool-aid in the jungles of South America.
I think the Church is made for man. But the question is in what sense? Is it a consumer corporate model? Or is it more akin to a volunteer service where the focus is on serving rather than service.
I think issues of sustainable leadership really come into play here (see Hargreaves for a basic intro to sustainable leadership)
http://www2.bc.edu/~hargrean/docs/seven_principles.pdf
I wonder how linked the mega-church phenomena is to the emerging focus on transformational leadership that has occured in the last decade?
http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/theories/bass_transformational.htm
The latter certainly encourages activie participation, and diffuses leadership, however, like most innovations in education related areas, I suspect it will gradually meld back to more traditional models. The interesting things is while such large scale reforms often dissapear, they are able to subltly change societal context enough that many of the useful additions start to become implicit in other practices.
Personally I like sustainable practices that have a good hold on their own history and cultural footings.
13 The church exists for men and women to allow them to achieve their exaltation. What we get or don’t get here and now is of little consequence compared to eternity.
In leadership one can think of three levels of effects, direct, indirect, and reciprocal. In education at least, indirect effects are the most substantial. Formal organizations seem to eventually slide to system solutions where direct effects end up with a bit more focus. While our church is clearly organized, the lay ministry seems about an ideal a way as any to encourage indirect effects.
So as Clark says, I would say the church as designed is set up to provide a forum for us to express Christian conceptions of service and empowerment. Should one worry more about what individuals get out of it? Sure, but deep democratic control by a lay ministry seems to ensure individuals don’t get left out. We could always do more, but sometimes changing the focus too much will have longer term organizational changes which may oppose what the change originally intended to fix. There are lots of examples of this in education reforms over the years.
I think it was Dave or Clark that I read who drew the parallel to the Ministry of Christ. Was Christ not delivering because people fell away?
Alan Wolfe makes a great argument in The Transformation of American Religion that the American Church has been transformed into the consumer model of the American economy. Churches are executing focus groups to best meet the tastes of the target demographic in music, theme, etc. The mega-church is his ultimate example of this consumerism.
I hope, however, that church isn’t simply about consumption. Those that seek only to consume won’t find solace in the restored gospel.
To paraphrase someone:
And so, my fellow Latter-day Saints: ask not what the Lord’s Church can do for you—ask what you can do for your Lord’s Church.
My fellow Christians of the world: ask not what the Lord’s Church will do for you, but what together we can do for the freedom of man.
“Branded Nation: The Marketing of Megachurch, College Inc., and Museumworld” by James Twitchell also talks about church’s moves toward a consumer based model. From his point of view the long term consequences include indistguishable products that are only differientiated by heightened perception.
I suspect the issue of perception might be a big factor here.
Sure, but deep democratic control by a lay ministry seems to ensure individuals don’t get left out.
Hmm. I’m just not sure that’s true Chris. But that’s partially because I think democracy is problematic as having the strength some claim for it. I just don’t think “voters” (of whatever sense) have enough time or information to ensure such things. Thus the move even early in American political development to have politicians as representatives of the people. i.e. it was their job to be informed. The problem in our lay ministry is that competing claims on our time often mean this just doesn’t happen.
Don’t get me wrong, I think there are plenty of benefits to our lay ministry. But I think it unarguable that the Bishop could be much, much more effective were he full time.
I’d say that quite to the contrary of our “democratic” Church ensuring people don’t get left out that it instead guarantees the development of “clicks” and other social clumping that ensures people do get left out. We try to avoid this with home teaching and people looking for converts and so forth. But in practice it is unavoidable that we pay more attention to those we know and are more socially networked with. This entails that those who often need the most attention don’t get it. Thus some of our retention problems.