I recently received an email that announced the launching of a new internet resource for persons in ministry. It is a website that gives access to “HD video content library created to equip all ministry leaders,” featuring a popular Christian leadership expert, psychologist, teacher, and author. This resource will surely be a great benefit to the Christian community, especially to ministry leaders. I personally have already benefitted from some of the books written by the featured teacher.
However, I am not happy about the name that was given to this resource. It suggests something to me that, I am quite certain, was not the intention of those who named it. So, what follows is not a criticism of the resource itself, but more a reflection on the deliberations that its name generated in my mind. The website is called Church OnDemand.
Here’s my problem. A certain mindset has pervaded contemporary society, where consumers or customers are given the option to “demand” what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. So, we have, for example, “on demand TV” such that consumers may now watch their favorite shows without being tied down to a specific day and time slot. They can even “binge watch” through internet streaming services. The consumer is on control.
Sadly, this mindset has infiltrated even the Christian community. The phrase “church on demand” leads me to think about the kind of attitude or mindset that causes one to approach church as a religious institution that provides religious services that cater to “my needs”—which really are personal desires and preferences. In its extreme form, this mindset believes that a church has no right to place any expectations on me. A church simply responds to “my needs.” And if a church cannot deliver the “goods and services” that I am looking for, I go and “shop” elsewhere. This is the mindset that has come to be known as “consumer Christianity.”
No longer is the church seen as a faith community that seeks to live under the leadership of Christ, together trusting him and working out a way to realign their lives, values, and priorities to that of Christ (Ephesians 4.15). People become religious consumers who want church programs and activities to meet their “perceived needs.” From this perspective, the “consumer is always right.” Everything else must adjust—activities, programs, schedules, practices, and, sometimes, even the church’s teachings and doctrines (2 Timothy 4.3).
But consumer Christianity is not Christianity. And a church on demand is not a church. Let Christ define what Christianity and church is all about, and let him take the lead in all things.
—Keith Y. Jainga