church shopping...

I posted a link a couple of days ago to churchshoppers.com ... Dallas picked up the ball and ran with it. A small bit of discussion ensued...

I thought it might be helpful to say a couple of brief words about what I actually thought of this site, beyond the "Ugh" that I already posted, facund as that may be.

I know where these folks are coming from. They had an idea, put some scratch together, hired a designer and went with it. This is a business for them- they hope that by providing some services to people they know and love (Christians, looking for a church), they can also make some money.

But they have chosen an extremely poor metaphor for their business, in my opinion.

The tagline: "Stop Church Hopping and Start Church Shopping!" in particular stands out...

I see this as a well-intentioned side business for someone that contributes to what many of us see as an overall negative in the church. Many of us (us being soul patched/goateed emerging church-type bloggers) have been decrying "consumerism" in church for awhile, that is, the tendency to see church as a place to get my religious needs serviced and to be chosen based on whatever programmatic offerings best tickle my fancy.

This seems like a very unhealthy road for the Church to walk down (I wrote more about it here) and one to be resisted rather than embraced.

The idea of getting blatant about "shopping" for a church community is simply disturbing to those of us who want to reduce consumerism in churches and not promote it.

Though I initially had some questions about churchreviews.org, I think it comes closer to the concept of what these people were trying to do but without the level of over the top consumer mentality...

From the Churchshoppers.com website:

Searching for a home church usually consists of making a list from the Yellow Pages and spending several weeks, even months, attending various services that often do not match your family’s style of worship or specific care needs. Time, especially our spiritual time, is extremely valuable and is not best served by this type of church search.

Let Churchshoppers help!

I don't know... I recognize that not every community will be the right fit for every person. But maybe there's value in someone needing to physically attend many church communities to find the right fit- maybe the internet and things specifically like churchshopping.com are short circuiting a valuable experience in the life of Christians- being exposed to many different communities, many different people...

So- while I know that the people who put this site together have serving others (and making a buck!) in mind, I'm not sure that in the long run, this is a helpful use of technology for the church...

Comments

[coolio]

Excuse me...I love churchshoppers!!!!!!!!!!!!!