Rethink Church is the new outreach plan released on May 6 by United Methodist Communications. A website dedicated to seekers ages 18-34, www.10thousanddoors.org uses images of doors, demonstrating numerous ways one can enter into a relationship with a congregation. The campaign raises several important questions, such as “What if our budget served the people outside more than those inside?” and “How does our church go out there rather than waiting for them to come to us?” These are great questions, considering the growing number of people who no longer consider church a part of their lives -- no matter how we improve or programs.
However, this campaign is also susceptible to the market’s influence, where churches ultimately focus on (according to an article in Interpreter magazine) “what people are trying to find.”
As churches consider their own involvement in the denomination’s Rethink Church campaign, we must also consider the market’s influence in our decision-making. Are we seeking a more flexible movement in the Church in order to more quickly and adequately respond to the particular needs presented by various emerging groups of potential young members, so identified by demographic studies highlighting “lifestyle segments” (themselves created by the marketing industry)? This is all to ask: Are media campaigns like Rethink Church possibly another effort to determine a church’s function and relevance in changing circumstances within the boundaries and definitions given to the church by the secular market?
The United Methodist Church should seriously consider the place of the General Rules in forming its identity as the people of God in the world. More specifically, we should explore how these rules functioned in the Methodist movement not only as a form of discipline for individual piety, but as a warrant for broader ecclesiological claims. L. Gregory Jones and Michael Cartwright write, “One of the primary factors enabling the ‘people called Methodists’ to become the ‘people called Methodist’ in early Methodism was the practice of the ‘General Rules’ through the class meetings and gatherings of the societies.”
Formed by the rules, Methodists constituted a people “called out by God to embody an evangelical mission on behalf of the wider church.” Rather than pursue innovate ways to attract specific segments of the market, perhaps the United Methodist Church should draw upon Wesley’s account of formation and ecclesiology, as they do represent a tradition that gives shape to a holy people. In the face of the all-encompassing market, we must consider the church as a holy people before we consider the church as constituted by holy people. In other words, rather than capitulating to the individualizing forces of the market and rather than allowing this to shape our conversations about what the church should be in order to serve this “market,” we should continually ask, “What does it mean to be the people of God?” What difference would it make if we began our conversations about the church and its ministry in just this way?
One element within the Wesleyan/Methodist tradition that might clarify what it means to be the people of God is the practice or principle of connectionalism. In the early Methodist movement, connectionalism referred to a basic set of practices and structures that would insure the presence of unity. While this was true primarily among the preachers, Wesley intended for this unity to extend as well to all members of the Methodist societies in England. In his last letter to the American Methodists, Wesley urges them to declare clearly that "the Methodists are one people in all the world [and] that it is their full determination so to continue.” It is from this desire that Methodism developed structures and practices to insure this connectedness and unity: the structure of the Conference and the practices of Holy Conferencing.
Sadly, Methodism has since evolved from being a vibrant missionary “movement” to being an “institution.” The term connectionalism is now used primarily to describe the institutional structures of the United Methodist Church, rather than the interconnected nature of a missionary movement. This is tragic, if participation in the unity of the church means participation in the unity of the triune God. The “connection” should not merely be a description of our denominational structures. Rather, it is the means by which Methodists are a “People” in the world, connected to one another and to God who calls us together in worship and sends us out in mission.
How do we resist the placement of religion in the private sphere and subvert the impulsive focus on the needs of the individual? What shapes our conversations about what the church is and should be – the Gospel, or the all-encompassing market? What does it means to be the people of God in the world?
I believe that framing our conversations in such a way may help us resist the tendency to seek relevance and legitimacy in the market. This is quite a contrast to seeing local churches as functional housing for a set of “spiritual” experiences or community activities that are offered as such to the consumer market. Barry Harvey offers another direction:
Stories that articulate an alternative identity do not stand alone, but are set within a set of social practices that place this identity beyond the reach of either the persecutor or the seducer. Baptism, table fellowship, disciplines of forgiveness and reconciliation, prayer and fasting, and habits of hospitality that nurture friendships with the poor and outcast enable the followers of Jesus to withstand the pressure of both overt persecution and the subtle seduction of the postmodern risk culture (the market).
Harvey’s vision is for the church to constitute an alternative “public,” or “the people of God.” The forces of the market will not so easily eclipse such a people, as they are empowered and able to stand in contrast to it. Harvey here seems to reflect a vision for the church not apparent in contemporary United Methodism or Evangelicalism. Unfortunately, it appears we are still attractional in our thinking.
One aspect of modern United Methodism is to consider the church in functional terms. More specifically, a church is successful when it effectively facilitates the spiritual growth of individuals. Such “success” is noticeable through membership, attendance in worship, small groups and service projects, as well as financial giving. Indications in Wesley that suggest his support for a functional view of the church can be found in contemporary ecclesiological reflection for United Methodists.
For example, George Hunter, a popular author and professor of evangelism suggests that Wesley’s approach to pursuing evangelism was
“…remarkably close to that of today’s Church Growth movement. For instance, [Wesley] was an unapologetic pragmatist in the choice and development of strategies, models, and methods. The supreme standard for evaluating any evangelism approach was its outcomes, that is, whether or not the approach helped to achieve the perennial apostolic objectives of discipling of people and the growth of the true Church." (To Spread the Power)
This comparison is significant, given that the Church Growth movement places great emphasis on numbers and the “homogeneous unit” principle. Both of these bear great similarities to the project of the modern market. In the modern market, one's success is determined by market share. In addition, the “homogeneous unit” principle sounds very much like forms of niche marketing, not to mention that such a principle could lead to supporting racial/ethnic and economic divisions in the society within the church.
My point is not to argue what Wesley did or did not say or do. Rather, I am suggesting that United Methodists, in evaluating Wesleyan thought for the contemporary church, cannot help but be distorted in these efforts when their goal is to secure the legitimacy and the relevance of the church.
A few years ago, I became interested in the Emergent Church movement, which represents (among other things) an ongoing experiment with cross-traditional liturgical and formative Christian practices. The United Methodist Church has also shown interest in this young movement, since it may be instructive for their own efforts to reach out to these missing generations. In other words we United Methodists believe that if it works for the Emergent Church, we should try it too.
There is an ongoing conversation between the UMC and the Emergent Church movement. However, are these conversations subject to distortion by the influence of the consumer market? Read how one leader describes his emergent community: “Individually, each [member] adopts what practices they [sic] want and asks for help. Some do the Book of Common Prayer, some the divine hours, and some the Eastern Orthodox prayer book” (Gibbs/Bolger p.230). Such practices are offered as new programs that will hopefully awaken interest and stimulate growth in a dormant church.
Could this be a subtle form of what Michael Budde describes as the “appropriation of religiosity?” By appropriation of religiosity, Budde means offering religious symbols and practices (extracted from their respective traditions) in order to attract new members (or consumers?). While the search for a greater catholicity in the life and practice of the United Methodist Church is good, United Methodism is by no means insulated from the drive of the market that seeks to appropriate these traditions in the interest of seeing its churches be more successful, relevant and popular.
In an address to the Council of Bishops in 2007, Council President, Bishop Janice Riggle Huie suggested, “United Methodists need to get past their perception of themselves as an institution and once again become a movement that responds nimbly to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.” This means, the Bishops hope, that there will be a “renewed desire for United Methodist churches to become more effective and fruitful” and that there will develop throughout all levels of the church “a unity in the Spirit that can help transform both the church and the world.”
Remembering Barry Harvey and Michael Budde, my interest here is not to interpret what the Bishops meant or did not mean. Nor do I propose that their vision for the United Methodist Church is not a desirable one. We should be aware how such conversations may be subject to distortion and limitations – either by the bishops themselves or by church leaders who follow their lead—as we continue unaware of our potential service of the contemporary market. Such distortion and limitation is possible at all levels of the church.
Giving weight to Budde’s warning about the market’s formation of our assumptions, is it possible that the move to becoming “nimble as a “movement” rather than an “institution," is a move we have borrowed from the story of the twentieth century North American corporation as United Methodists congregations are facing shrinking bottom lines and increasingly disinterested consumers? Is it possible that the bishops’ desire for a nimble movement reflects what Budde describes in post-Fordist consumer culture as the development of flexible production?
Usually it's the Left (religious and political) condemning advertising and consumerism. The Right, in response, tends to characterize these as the free market in action. Similarly, we hear the Left ranting about corporate control of the media. This video, however, comes from the Right (in the pro-gold standard and anti-Federal Reserve sense); but the message is anti-corporate advertising and anti-corporate media. Corporate advertising, with the government's participation, has made debt slaves of all of us.
Is this what Ron Paul would be like as a populist rather than a libertarian? Will we see more crossing of ideological lines if the economy continues to unravel?
In The( Magic) Kingdom of God, Michael Budde describes the transformation of capitalism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Facing diminishing returns from mass-market production, capitalism shifted to new strategies to sustain the cycle of production and consumption. The primary strategy was the development of the niche market.
H.J. Heinz Company is an example of this development. After building its reputation in the mustard market with its signature square-faceted jar and familiar label and logo, Heinz began to develop new kinds of mustard, most notably, Grey Poupon, which fed a market of young professionals (Yuppies) seeking a more gourmet experience not offered by the plain yellow mustard they ate while growing up. As one “yuppie” put it— “All I want is a place where I can buy twelve kinds of mustard.”
Mass communications media, telecommunications and marketing firms excel at developing products especially shaped for each niche in order to maximize the potential for sales and profits. In that environment, the market will take anything and everything that it can in order to package it and offer it as a new product to the consumptive public, including religious forms of culture.With the establishment of the products (religious symbols and practices) and the cultivation of the consumers (individuals in niche markets), the late-Capitalist market economy provides congregations with a nearly irresistible temptation to accept their place in modernity, relegated to the realm of the private, left to seek relevance and legitimacy through consumer popularity. If the Church find itself in this story, what should the response be?
Budde suggests that pastors and lay leadership be self-critical, acknowledging the constant temptation to serve the market through a focus on the individual. Theological reflection on ecclesiology and practices must consider these realities. Unless such reflection makes the church a “called, gathered community of disciples their primary point of reference and identity, the gospel will remain marginalized by the effects of the culture industries.”
In his book Another City, Barry Harvey mentions two places in modern societies where the Church seeks legitimation—the state and the market. Regarding the state, Harvey argues that most post-Reformation churches continue to embrace some form of Constantinianism, proclaiming with joy the end of that era, yet…never hesitating “to issue advice to the states as if they were Christian kingdoms.”
If a church turns to the market for legitimacy, it accepts the role of providing religious goods and services to individual consumers. The modern understanding of religion was a good fit for America, says political columnist George Will: “The founders wished to tame and domesticate religious passions…by establishing a commercial republic – capitalism." Persons seeking religion are “encouraged to pick and choose from a vast inventory of religious symbols and doctrines, to select those beliefs that best express his or her private sentiments.” The obvious danger to any American church lies in measuring its legitimacy (success) by consumer response, by the popularity of the product.
