I’ve been doing some reading [1] in preparation for our Fall sermon series through the book of Revelation. If you are like me, my mind immediately drifts to dragons eating babies, boils on the faces of barbarians, and barcodes on the heads/hands of those who have relented to the anti-Christ.
[Enter Kirk Cameron, stage left] Slow eye-roll.
Revelation is deep water filled with a thousand monsters that can keep sensible people up at night. I am overwhelmed at the sheer weight, historicity, and modern implications of this book. I’m nervous that our people will be more confused by me and turn once again to the gobbly-goop of Left Behind. But I digress.
Barcodes are keeping me up this summer. Not the barcodes in Revelation 13—though those are bit scary as well.
I had a dream last night (decidedly as a result of my current reading list) of people in church with barcodes on their foreheads. I woke up wondering if they had to get scanned before getting in line at our coffee bar. Surely not! Our coffee isn’t that good. I think the barcodes in my dream represented something much more dangerous, much more sinister.
Barcodes are for buying. Barcodes are for shopping. For consuming.
In my dream, the church was filled with patrons, customers, consumers. These were people unashamedly window shopping; lingering for a catchy tune, sitting long enough for a taste test of a more powerful message. The front of the church had one of those nifty revolving doors that made it easy to come in and easy to exit. And that’s what was happening. A steady flow of traffic, but not much staying.
Frankly, what made this dream a nightmare was my participation in it. I was like that old woman standing behind the kiosk at Costco or Sam’s inviting people to taste the newest cheese spread. Most people were eager to try it, but on hearing the cost they gave a non-committal, “Maybe later”, and walked off to the next person selling their Christian wares.
WARNINGS
Whether this dream is from the Lord or not, warnings abound. Warnings of pastoral malpractice, attractional methods that are not sustainable, and clear warnings to those who treat local churches like businesses in the free-market system competing for the attention of new customers.
I don’t have any substantive answers. I have to make war on my own consumeristic tendencies before I start offering platitudes.
But I can tell you what the answer is not: the answer is not to just rail against whatever local megachurch happens to be next door and cry ministry foul when people leave our churches for theirs. I also know just because a person leaves one church for another doesn’t mean they don’t love Jesus. It may simply mean one church community doesn’t fit their season of life and the church down the street does. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes people leave cause they are immature and don’t know how to have hard conversations. Sometimes people aren’t good in crowds. Sometimes our churches are filled with jerks and keep legitimate seekers away. The possibilities are endless.
My concerns primarily are for those who come and go and patron
every conference and special event; who sit front row for the special speaker,
but are nowhere to be found on regular old Sundays. They can’t be found two
weekends in a row in one local church community. These people, those whom God
loves dearly, have traded in the gem and beauty of a local church for the shine
of the newest Christian purchase swiped from the barcode proudly donned on their
forehead.
[1] Stott’s Incomparable Christ, Peterson’s Reversed Thunder, Ladd’s Commentary on Revelation, and Sproul’s online resources
