The Church in Starbucks clothing.
I was reading this interesting article on the Out of Ur blog about, which basically talks about how Starbucks seems more inviting to people as opposed to church. What is Starbucks doing that the church can imitate, to be more inviting to the un-churched or even the saved!
I was recently talking with my wife, I sometimes trap her into listen to me process out loud, along the similar line of thought.
If the church is trying to imitate Starbucks (a name just for the sake of thinking, Starbucks may or may not be the best example) and be a place where a diverse people will “stroll in” and not be weirded out, then I believe the church will probably consistently fail in most cases. I base this solely on my own experience and not on years of studying or research. I just happen to remember the time when I was not a believer.
You could dress church up in any way, smile more, wear shorts, grunge up on the interiors or whatever, it is yet church. It is the church struggling to hold on to it’s traditional identity while yet trying to be attractive to the un-churched. What is unattractive about church to the un-churched? Anything remotely “church”! I believe that some un-churched probably just plain out hate church, not that they have different beliefs or are ignorant… they just plain out hate church.
Dressing up church in attractive clothing is not covering anything. It is time to re-think church, time to undo the way we’ve done church.
There is a church in India that is radically changing the way church is done. In most ways, they are attracting the people even Starbucks wouldn’t attract, or couldn’t afford Starbucks.
How do they do this?
They don’t do traditional church. The building is a community center where they offer a lot of services that the community needs and a lot of events that a diverse, multi-racial, multi-faith Indian community lines up at the doors to enter. Events like concerts, comedy shows, performing arts. Relationships are built consistently. The building is used for “church” on Sundays. The rest of the week, it is a place where the community wants to hang out.
Needless to say, this church has impacted the community in a radical way, many of the frequent visitors have a good relationship and have visited on a Sunday, some have accepted Christ and more are being impacted.
So I think that if we even begin to ask the questions like “How can the church be a place where people find it as attractive as ‘Insert cool place here’ ” then I think we cannot hold on to being church, with candles and the cross and flowers and opening up our doors with “cool” things to do and expect the un-churched to stroll in.
It’s time to re-think.
September 1st, 2007 at 4:50 am
Hey Con,
We agree. Good thinking
Senith and Stan at Stan’s place in Mysore! (on my way to Chennai)
September 8th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Good show good show! Give me a call when you get back home from your world traveling!