Consumer Church Meets Suburban Living

In our recent posts, we have explored the impact of consumerism on today’s American church and its inevitable consequences: passive, immature believers; “church shoppers”, burned out pastors, and a church culture of competition, to name a few. But if consumerism in the church weren’t enough of a problem today, there is the thorny matter of the suburban lifestyle that seems to make any movement away from consumerism well nigh impossible.

As many have noted, middle class, suburban culture values safety and security above all else. These things are primarily valued under the banner of “what’s best for our children.” Christian or non-Christian, pagan or Christ follower, there is no greater guiding principle in suburban culture than determining what is best for our children. Such motives can indeed be noble: what parent does not want their child to experience the best life has to offer, be all they can be, and to be kept away from harm’s way? However, as Alan Hirsch notes, when these 2 core values of safety and security merge with consumerism, comfort and convenience rise in importance alongside them. The result of this amalgamation in the Christian world is consumeristic churches that reflect these values.

This thirsting after comfort and safety runs incredibly deep in American churches today. Churches in our era desperately seek, above all else, to meet the felt needs of every member of the family. Such an approach is so pervasive that for the average suburbanite to imagine a church that does not meet our family’s overarching needs remains unthinkable!

One of the stickiest issues confronting today’s Christian suburbanite is that the middle class values that we hold so dear today are diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus and the values of the Kingdom. The kingdom that Jesus came to preach is one of adventure and of radical living that upsets the natural, complacent course of the world around us. The Christian life as God intended it is based on anything but comfort and certainty. As Jacque Ellul notes, “Christians should be troublemakers, creators of uncertainty, agents of a dimension incompatible with society.”

Yet in contrast to these kingdom values of risk and uncertainty, the American suburbs, in the words of Shane Claiborne, are “the home of the more subtle demonic forces- numbness, complacency, comfort- and it is these that can eat away at our souls.” It is clear that the Lion of Judah never intended for his followers to be identified by values such as ease and comfort. For us to settle into our cushioned pews while an unbelieving world heads for hell is the antithesis of what Christ has envisioned for His church.

Can the church truly fulfill its mission while simultaneously valuing comfort and security? In our next post, we’ll explore the necessity of challenge and risk if we are to truly grow as believers.