In a recent post on Emergent Self, Judith Hougen wrote:

Some years ago I sat at a sidewalk cafe with Barry, a pastor from San Francisco, during a break at a spiritual formation conference in Denver. I was interviewing him for a phantom book project. I sipped iced tea and described to him my ideas for the book and reported the results of the Barna survey [in which] . . . evangelicals scored just above prostitutes as a favorable group, his initial laughter lapsed into sober reflection. Barry can get this Buddha-like look, and you know something profound is on the way.

Finally, he leaned across the table and said, “One reason we’re right next to the prostitutes is that we’re in the same business. We don’t offer love, we offer services. We look good but we don’t know how to love and, unfortunately, society will settle for that to get what they think they need.”

“We don’t offer love, we offer services.”  Now that is a powerful indictment of the Church, if it is true, and unfortunately, in my experience, this is true for many congregations.  Churches become the place to go if you need to get a baby done (baptism), a beautiful setting for a wedding, or a place to view the recently deceased besides the funeral parlor. Many churches also provide their members with services like pastoral counseling, fellowship opportunities, and comfortable, non-confrontational worship for little or no cost.  And many people now treat congregations as just another shopping experience, seeking the church that best meets their needs.

Some, not allm but some successful churches are those who have learned to prostitute themselves to consumers looking for best value for their tithing or offering dollars.  And if love – the preaching, teaching and practice of love – has anything to do with congregational life, it does so only secondarily to the overwhelming need the church has for new participants and their much needed money.  I cannot tell you how many meetings I have endured in which the primary conversation was centered on this question: “How can we attract new members to our church?”  And why does this question come up?  Only because the church in question needs these new people and their money in order to survive.

It’s like the Church has a bad habit it needs to feed, and in order to keep getting its fix, new infusions of cash are necessary to score the drugs.  And in the church’s case the habit primarily has to do with maintaining itself and especially its building(s).

I have no desire to see this charade in my ministry or in the ministry of any church with which I am involved.  From now on conversations that start with "how can we we get new members/money into the door?" will be shifted to "How can we show the love of Jesus to those around us?"  Rather than being a love-less provider of services, I want the Church to share the love of Christ in as many ways as is humanly possible.

In short, we need to stop prostituting ourselves and start giving ourselves away. Those, at least, are my thoughts for today.  What do you think?

Thanks for Sonja Andrews for pointing the blog post above a "tweet" yesterday on Twitter.  You can read Sonja’s blog here.