No Special Sauce on My Eucharist, Please

I recently found a website purportedly raising money for a pilot program that, if successful, would place McDonald's franchises in underused church buildings across the country and of various denominations. I won't link to the program, called McMass, for various reasons: in part because I hope that the whole thing is sarcasm, but also because I think it's easy enough to find and that if it isn't sarcasm I don't want to support it in any way.

Whether sarcastic or not, this site points to some issues with contemporary church thinking:

1. The number of people at a church is somehow an indicator of how healthy a church is. Yes, in general, a church should be increasing its members, attendees, or whatever, because that is the result of spreading the Gospel. But putting firm numbers and definite expectations on such growth shifts the emphasis from the long, slow processes of growth in Christ as disciples to a strategy of increase at any cost. That cost can be continued growth of existing members or even the Gospel itself.

2. The church is unsuccessful, but can become successful by applying modern business methods. Yes, the church is fairly unsuccessful by business standards. But the business standard measures success ultimately by profit. When churches are taking in much larger amounts of money than they are "spending", people are suspicious of them in a way that isn't even relevant to, say, Apple. Or McDonald's.

The modern business methods in churches aren't there for profitability, of course. They're there to increase the numbers: attendance, membership, participation, even giving. It's about increasing efficiency, better marketing, giving the people what they want, eliminating underperforming ministries, creating buy-in, and the like. These practices will increase numbers, certainly. How the fit in with the Good News of Jesus Christ, I have no idea: making a convert increases numbers, but making a disciple (as the Great Commission calls for) does not.

3. Every congregation has the same problem, which has a single solution, unless of course they've already implemented that solution. In the McMass proposal, the problem is vacancy, and the solution is a McDonald's franchise. Other problems have been declining membership, cultural irrelevancy, and losing the Millenials. Solutions have included contemporary worship, seeker services, small groups, upbeat music, nontraditional settings, and mission statements.

The idea that every congregation has the same problem (unless it's already been solved) is absurd. Rural, suburban, and urban congregations all have different dynamics because of where they are. Newer congregations aren't the same as older ones. Large congregations word differently from small ones. Conservative churches face different challenges from progressive ones. Ethnic, racial, and denominational histories influence congregations today. The idea that one solution, no matter how "successful" it has been elsewhere, will fix the problems of all of these is at best wishful thinking. This goes double when you realize that "successful" usually is defined in terms of number one and two above, and not in terms of a closer walk with Jesus.

4. The present time is special, at least when compared to the past. Usually this idea is implicit in the idea that now we have the knowledge (usually modern, effective business practices) to solve the problems the Church faces, which it has never faced before. The idea that somehow the contemporary situation is unique in church history such that we cannot look to the past for solutions (indeed, the past is often seen as a cause of the problem) is a kind of temporal arrogance. As Christians we are part of a chain of believers going back to those who actually heard the words of Jesus. We may know more about certain things, but only because we have the insights of previous generations: we see further because we stand on the shoulders of giants (Isaac Newton). We are not loved by God any more or any less than previous generations. We are no more and no less human than previous generations. The idea that our answers are better without listening to our predecessors, or that our problems are worse because of our predecessors, is, as a previous generation might have said, malarkey. The Church has always had problems -- and wisdom.