toward a helpful critique of the megachurch

As I'm working on putting together interviews for the podcast, I've been working my way through the Missio Alliance "Writing Collectives", a great collection of blog posts that I think really hit the nail on the head when it comes to the state of the church today. I've been posting highlights and thoughts here. 

One of the themes that I'm catching from the writing collectives is a clearer critique of the mega-church. Now I recognize that mega-churches make an easy target, and that in reality they're like every other church: a mix of good and bad, ugly and beautiful, and wonderful and tragic. But what I appreciate about the critique fleshed out in the writing collectives is that it gets at a few blind spots in our culture that, once recognized, really help Christians lead the church in a way that grows and cultivates disciples. 

One such blind spot: our affinity for well-run organizations   

Ever heard of "sheep swapping" or stealing? Again, another easy label to slap on the mega-church. The rebuttal is often that it's actually Christians moving from a bad or dying church to a better one. Survival of the fittest so to speak. And in reality some amount of circulation is good for followers of Christ, and some churches do indeed need to close their doors.

The real issue with growth by transfer is that too often it doesn't lead to the making of disciples, or to the planting of disciple making communities. This is David Fitch's argument in his post Mega Churches Steal Sheep: My Ongoing Debate With Ed Stetzer. When Christians consolidate together into larger, more efficiently and well-run congregations, this tends to amplify two things: 1) Christians identifying first as consumers rather than active agents in Christ's in-breaking Kingdom since there's so much that is run behind the scenes and doesn't involve the typical member, and 2) disconnecting followers of Christ from the day to day, season by season realities of being called as disciple makers and proclaimers of Jesus' Lordship and reign. 

Here's a silly yet hopefully helpful way of looking at it: followers of Christ aren't called simply to show up to the donut shop once a week, we're called to actually learn how to make the donuts, and to do it together. At a mega church there's so much that we don't do that we easily become consumers rather than active participants, and then the fatal next step, at least in the discipleship sense, is that we grow far too comfortable with thinking that we just need little, once a week slices of spirituality to get by, rather than a life filled with the "mysterious and mind-blowing partnership between the presence of Christ and our human activity...His presence is a frame through which to view our practice… and our practice is a frame through which the world can see His presence." 

Churches that are run more professionally and efficiently are generally much easier to attend, and often more attractive. There's fewer problems that we feel need fixing, and we feel we get more bang for our buck (not only financially but also in terms of choosing where to spend a precious weekend morning). But disciples of Christ need to recognize what we give up when we over-prioritize professionalism and efficiency. Making donuts is messy business, and teaching people to make donuts is even messier. But if we avoid or fear the mess, we'll end up missing the whole mission.