Attractional church

So much of what churches are about these days is driven by consumer marketing instincts.   Let's call it consumer evangelism.  Using marketing and advertising techniques, churches intend to get more people to connect to their congregations.  A flashy sign or website, postcard mass mailers and special events to attract the masses.  These all appear to be consistent with the culture in which we live.  Bigger and flashier is better.  And often these events are effective, meaning that they achieve their purpose.  What is the purpose?  To attract a crowd?  To sell something or someone?  To appeal to a broad share of the market, labeled "the unchurched"? This form of Church growth resembles the expansion of businesses, like walmart and target.  The goal is to get the biggest share of consumers, putting smaller churches "out of business."  The indepedent churches who have expertly adopted consumer marketing strategies for growth are clearly competitors, all but telling the masses that their goods and services are better, more relevant, new and improved--compared to the old-line churches and their archaic ways. 

I mean even the kind of community service churches provide comes packaged for sale in the competitive world of local economics.  I see churches offering concerts, preschools and child care centers, meals, and even the annual bazaar.  The non-profit begins to look like another money-making enterprise building its business based on numerical growth analysis.  Churches are oriented to the market place, but rather than providing a revolutionary alternative, they are attempting to compete with the broader secualr market.  Think about the growth in Christian music and books over the past decade or two.  One's Christian identity is coopted by the market.  "Shop Christian" becomes a kind of hidden slogan among evangelicals.  Should churches sell anything, ever?    There is a form of "bait and switch" at work too.  Lure them in with something attractive and then insert evangelical salvation speech.  My neighbor offered a "meet and greet" with free food on Halloween night, cosponsored by their community church.  Turns out the real purpose was to get some kids "saved".  How does this kind of marketing turn people off from the Christian message?    
On the flip side, the narrative of decline familiar to so many smaller, aging congregations, sounds so much like a failing business that I suspect some small churches should declare spiritual bankrupcy in the face of the church growth movement.  How can the small church compete with the big church and its multi-million dollar facilities and programs and cafes and bookstores?  It can't. 
BUT, what if church is not McDonald's?  What if Jesus, spiritual food to be consumed in bread and wine, embodies an alternative economic strategy than the consumer market one so many congregations employ?  What if embracing such a market driven Christianity is a sell-out to a powerful god at work in the hearts and minds of Americans--- A power that threatens to undermine the announcement of good news for which Jesus died?  What is an alternative practice or way of being church that confronts the dominant market-driven business paradigm?  In "The Forgotten Ways," by Allen Hirsch, he writes,

"Consumerism as it is experienced in the everyday and discipleship as it is intended in the scriptures are simply at odds with each other.  And both aim at the mastery over our lives, only in marketing it's called brand loyalty or brand community."  p. 110.

If church is the people of God who make Christ known through words and actions, then Christology guides all that we say and do.  We might ask the question, how does Jesus participate in and/or subvert the dominant socio-political, economic and religious paradigm of his contemporaries?  How does such participation/subversion apply to the 21st century North American context?
 I propose this:

• We ask: How do the parables in Matthew 20, Luke 12, 16, and 18 reframe dominant consumer economic paradigms? 
• We commit:
• Church rejects any attractional self-expression.  This includes signs, brochures, ads.  The goal is never to get more people to come here, but to reveal the crucified and risen Christ. 
• Church is inherently generous and foolishly giving, especially to the "undeserving".  Churches find ways to regularly give away things. 
• Church fasts from development of competitive services, seeking to partner with others in every endeavor.  Church will not duplicate what is already being offered, but will generously support other's efforts.  Ex.:  Fair trade fairs that net 0 profits, but provide a true shopping/gift-giving  alternative. 
• Churches may develop scholarships to send low income children to preschools and child cares.  Churches refuse indebtedness and help people to pay off debts.    

What if the greatest gift we can offer our culture is to free people from the consumer market gods that call for our allegiance and devotion in every ad, every billboard, every commercial? How can we offer such a gift of freedom?  Is it not a form of Jubilee in a culture that is in bondage to debts we cannot pay?