Photo by Ivan Lapyrin on Unsplash
Are you sitting comfortably?
Have you heard the story about Goldilocks and the church?
A woman named Goldilocks goes for a walk on a Sunday morning trying to find a church to join. To her delight she comes upon a beautiful looking church building which she enters and joins the service that’s just starting. But the worship style is too formal for her taste - with liturgy and hymns she doesn’t know - and she doesn’t enjoy it. She tries another service, but the sung worship style feels too loud and repetitive, and she doesn’t like it. She tries another service and this one feels just right.
Then she joins a small group, but the people in this one seem a little sour and not really to her taste, so she tries another one. But the people in this group seem too sweet and warm and not to her taste. She tries another one, and this one feels just right.
The story could go on as Goldilocks continues to try the various activities and ministries in the church, and decides what’s to her taste and what isn’t. In the original story, whilst the 3 bears are out, Goldilocks tried the porridge, the chairs, and the beds, and she used and consumed what was to her taste and rejected or ruined the rest. Our Goldilocks could do the same.
In the original story, Goldilocks walked in and helped herself to fulfil her needs. How much better it would have been if she’d been invited in by the bears, initially as a guest, and then hopefully over time as a welcomed and cherished part of their extended family. My imagination likes to think she’d have been treated to something far tastier than porridge!
We need to pay attention to our welcome processes and to our pathways to belonging in our churches. Rather than letting people walk in and consume what they want, let’s do all we can to help people feel like a welcomed and cherished guest. Let’s ensure they then become a valued part of extended family.
Church is not a service to receive - it’s a relationship to enjoy and value.
Church is about relational commitment, and about being loved, known, and accepted for who we are. Church is not about having our own personal preferences met. It’s a place and a people who help each other to meet and know God.
Imagine what Mummy, Daddy and Baby bear feel like when they come home and find their beloved home trashed. No wonder Goldilocks saw anger in their eyes! But there would be deep sadness too, as baby bear picks up the pieces of his broken chair.
Many church staff teams’ function under a weight of sadness because the consumer mindset has invaded the church. Many leaders and their teams feel that nothing they do is good enough and they must ‘do more, do better, do something different’ to prevent people leaving. But people committed to the family don’t leave because something isn’t ‘to their taste’. Only consumers do that.
As movement thought leader Alan Hirsch recently posted on Twitter “You cannot build a church on consumers. They’ll desert you at a moment’s notice because they have no commitments beyond meeting their own needs. Jesus can take twelve disciples and build a movement that changes the world. He could never have done that with consumers”
Amid all the ministry activity you are enabling, can I encourage you to consider if it’s deepening discipleship and commitment to Christ? Do we give in to the pressure of meeting consumeristic demands, or do we prioritise enabling people’s personal relationship with Jesus to be deepened and outworked?
Let’s be counter cultural in our churches. Let’s take a stand against the consumer spirit and mindset. Let’s call each other to a better standard – a standard of loving, serving, and commitment to one another, to God and to the community we live in.
Let’s be part of a movement that changes the world, not just critiques the taste of the porridge.
For you,
Jules
Jules Morgan
UCAN Executive Director