On my last trip to East Africa, a particular church in Uganda was making front page news.   Apparently, an electric shock machine was found in his possession of one Pastor Wayo which would allow a person to send an electrical pulse into the body of an individual whom they touched.   This highlights a growing dilemma that with people seeking an experience with God, more and more, the temptation is to manufacture that supernatural experience for people.  There’s a demand and we supply it.

I spoke to some African pastors regarding the widely read and embraced Prayer of Jabez.   We discussed that the essence of the prayer from I Chronicles 4:9-10 “to enlarge my territory” is a call for more responsibility.  Here was a man who cried to the Lord that he might contribute more and accomplish something greater with his life.  Sadly, for most of them, the understanding had been reduced to a consumer’s plea for a cushy existence.  “Lord, make my life more comfortable”.  When we become consumers, rather than worshippers, we actually make God the product.  It’s easy to read through the gospels to highlight the myriad of times in which Jesus emphasised the privilege/blessings of following Him.  We won’t hunger or thirst; we will find pasture; we will bear fruit; we will receive life to the full.  However, there are a number of passages that focus on the cost/responsibility of following Christ as well.  In Luke 9:57-62, Jesus seems to go out of His way to put off three different individuals who are keen to follow Him.  Or in the case of the young, Jewish ruler, he asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Can you imagine?  This guy came to him with that line and Jesus couldn’t close the deal.  Clearly, Jesus didn’t possess the gift of an evangelist.  Why is the church so out of whack?

In 1983, a movie came out depicting the turbulence of our contemporary world.  The title of the film came from a Hopi Indian word koyaanisqatsi, which is translated as “life of moral corruption and turmoil”; “life out of balance”; “a course of life that cannot be sustained”.  It seems to me that the church is Koyaanisqatsi at times, out of balance, having lost its way.  Years ago, James Packer wrote an article entitled, A View From A Hot Tub and as I read it, I was amazed at how relevant it was to the church today.

The other day I was one of a crowd who spent much of a wet Saturday afternoon in a hot tub….As I sat there savoring hot tubness, cracking small jokes and adjusting to the feel of being bubbled over from all angles, it struck me that the hot tub is the perfect symbol of the modern route in religion.  The hot tub experience is sensuous, relaxing, floppy, laid-back:  not in any way demanding, whether intellectually or otherwise, but very, very nice:

“Modern life strains us.  We get stimulated till we are dizzy.  Relationships are brittle; marriages break; families fly apart; business is a cut-throat rat race….Automation and technology have made life faster and tenser….We have to run more quickly than any generation before us simply to stay where we are.  Is it any wonder then that when modern Western humanity turns to religion, what we want is total tickling relaxation, the sense of being at once soothed, supported and effortlessly invigorated:  in short, hot tub religion. We ask for it and up folk jump to provide it.  What hot tub religion illustrates most clearly is the law of demand and supply.”
(Packer, James  Hot Tub Religion.  Tyndale House:  Wheaton,  Ill., pp 68-69.)

We fight the temptation to be consumer driven, just give people what they want and in turn, they will rewards us with attendance, giving, and our own little empire.  Sadly, many church leaders have lost their balance as well.

I recall reading Peter Drucker, management guru par excellence, addressing the nature of the church.  He stated something that has always remained with me.  He argued that the church, by its nature, is goal-conflicted.  He proceeded to give the analogy of a hospital in which people who have been hurt, broken, and damaged come to get well.  However, the church is also comprised of people who are running around attending to these people, providing service, care, and the necessary attention.  You see, the problem is we’re trying to do two different things at the same time.  Ideally, when people have had ample time on the gurney, they get up and begin the process of helping others.  Occasionally, those who are helping lie down on the gurney and receive some attention themselves.  What we do is not simply “come and receive” nor is it “come and give”; it’s a combination, a both/and.  The same is true of following Christ.  If being in Christ is all about the demands and the cost, the Christian existence becomes a drudgery.  If  it is only about blessing and “what I get out of it”, it becomes consumer-oriented and ultimately self-centred.  We need a balance; Christ stated his yoke was light.

It’s been said that in the mid-twentieth century, there were two visions of the future.  George Orwell in his book, 1984, foresaw a future world characterised by power and control in which all of the enjoyment had been sucked out of life.  On the other hand, Aldous Huxley wrote the book, Brave New World, in which life was a perpetual state of bliss and drug-induced happiness.  Huxley envisioned a consumeristic world free from pain and suffering.  In the twenty first century, Huxley vision as it applies to the church seems to be winning out.  Both are inadequate and woeful.  Yet sadly, this vision of a consumer generated church leaves us a far cry from the early followers who bore the capacity by God’s Spirit to “turn the world upside down.”