Shopping Lists and Acquisitions

It’s the season of list-making, shopping, and acquiring gifts filled with the spirit of relationships. Throughout my career, the concept of “church shopping” has been a part of Sunday realities and midweek planning. The concept has sometimes gone to the extreme, wherein people, or church itself, suggests that there need to be readily packaged experiences that are worthy of visitor’s time -- that gives them a payoff for attending and/or supporting the church. “They are looking for something, and we need to give it to them.” This can look like a number of things:

• An excellent child/youth experience built on an attraction model that draws friends.
• A rich midweek array for adults that has that same attraction component.
• A beautiful building and an excellent website that promise a physical or virtual threshold.

Ministry on Monday can be an exhausting treadmill trying to keep up with “church shopping” and getting on people’s list. The struggle is real, so it’s good to get grounded. What science and faith tell us about satisfaction -- deep and abiding satisfaction -- is that it does not come from what is already built for us. Rather, our satisfaction comes from our belief that we can make a positive contribution. Satisfaction comes from the things that we build, both for ourselves and with others.

Our church just participated with sweat equity in a Habitat for Humanity build in Waco last Saturday. Our job was to install siding. Participants in the siding project were not experts but we measured, held, drilled and hammered and together we were building. There was an adrenaline rush in it. There was laughter at our inadequacies and pride when we finished a row of siding. There was fatigue and satisfaction at the end of that Saturday morning. It carried into the ensuing days. 

“Church shopping” is real and fair with such a wide array of Christian communities in Waco. People aim to shop their values. Admittedly, there are many church products to “acquire” out there. In the end, though, church shopping can feel like a cruel Christmas in which every gift you want is unwrapped around the tree, yet you still feel there’s something missing. Perhaps we might best focus on how to invite purposeful building each and every week in the ongoing project of First Presbyterian Church. As one Roman Catholic theologian, Bernard Prusak, says, we are always the “church unfinished.”