The Best Buy

The phone rings during dinner and a the voice of an enthusiastic stranger on the other end thanks you for a moment of your time and explains they are calling people in your area to solicit their opinion about something. Perhaps they even tell you about the sweepstakes you won but, mysteriously, don’t remember ever entering. And, of course, they assure you they are not asking you to buy anything. How likely is that, really?

Truth be told, we are being sold something all the time, whether it be a product, an opportunity, a candidate, or just an idea. The world around us is absolutely chock full of stuff we don’t really need but “can’t live without.” And there is always someone at hand, ready to sell it to us. This is, perhaps, never more true than when someone claims they have nothing to sell.

Over recent decades, we have evaluated the effectiveness of churches based largely on their sales appeal. Success, it is implied, comes in the form of the three B’s: Buildings, Budgets, and Butts in the seats. If you had these things, your church was considered successful. Visitors would flock through the doors to see what all the fuss was about. Members prided themselves on the attendance measured by thousands, the collections measured by millions, and the new church campuses constantly under construction. Leaders could write best selling books and speak at seminars about how to replicate their success.

Now many Christians are beginning to question this well packaged and efficiently marketed brand of church. How, we may ask, can anyone argue with the obvious success of these ventures? Well, to begin with, one would be hard pressed to make the argument that Jesus was motivated by any one of the three B standards. In fact, his ministry seems to demonstrate just the opposite as a standard of success. He was apathetic about buildings and budgets, and, rather consistently, it was a tiny minority that answered his call to discipleship. So, would we then argue that Jesus was not “successful” in ministry?

It would be far more accurate to say that Jesus subscribed to a different standard of success. He did not offer a product for us to consume like a new shirt or a TV dinner. He offered us something that would consume us. Something that would require self denial and missional zeal. Something that would replace the life we thought we wanted, with the life we were made for. Something that would replace our will with his. Sadly, even in the light of redemption and grace, there have been relatively few takers over the centuries. The Gospel has always done better in the hands of a zealous few than in the pocket of ambivalent masses. A few, consumed by it, will always do more good than a thousand who buy it.

Even as we have clambered to satisfy our own definitions of success, the church has borne fruit, though sometimes in spite of ourselves, rather than because of our efforts. These successes don’t negate the fact that our definitions have often been dramatically different from Christ’s. And they will never change the truth that we will advance the Kingdom more by living in it, than by trying to sell it.