Recovering a Christian View

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WITTENBURG DOOR: Is the Emperor Naked?

STEPHEN MANSFIELD: Many times. At least the back side of him. The front side has some kind of weird draping going on.

...

DOOR: You live in Nashville, Tenn.—Christian Hollywood. What's the news from the front?

MANSFIELD: I'm not sure I know. I find the Christian scene to be pretty confused. I think even more so because so much of it is market-driven. Do we have worship or do we have a showcase of our next worship album? Do we have preaching or do we have a test market for our pastor's new book? I certainly believe in selling tapes and books and CDs but I think the way the marketing mentality has invaded the Church and the body of Christ is damaging. So it's hard to know what's coming next and what's the next campaign of the major publisher who has reached his hand into the pulpit.

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DOOR: So how do you balance commerce and spirituality—in case we ever get solvent?

MANSFIELD: I think you offer a distinction between the pure thing that should go within the four walls of the church and then the marketed thing that extends outside. I don't have any problem with pastors writing books or having a video series or working with a publisher. That may be part of his ministry. But when that reaches into how he's scheduling things in the pulpit, what he's preaching, who he is playing to in the audience—it's a different thing altogether. So here in Nashville one of the things that's killing us is the market-driven church in a sense.
I go to churches frequently where people hand me their worship CD, they hand me their manuscript, their last teaching series and they say "You think this is a book? And will you talk to your publisher about it?" And I'm not even a big celebrity at all, believe me. Imagine what Amy Grant and Michael W. and some of the others get. So I find it to be really destructive. I'm convinced there are some churches where huge portions of the congregation are there to see what connections they can make instead of worshipping Jesus.

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DOOR: Holy networking, Batman! Sometimes it seems as if it's more about opportunities than individuals.

MANSFIELD: And look what it's doing to us. If we're going to talk about the Church today, let's be really blunt. People are voting with their feet. The next generation is not going to church.


http://www.wittenburgdoor.com/archives/mansfield.html

Well that about sums it up.....




On edit for pic...

[patrice]

1. I did a little research a few years ago; went to national church organization

websites, Evangelical mostly, and looked at their .pdfs (I may have them filed somewhere) describing the services member churches can receive upon joining. It was definitely stuff about how to setup networking, for whatever purposes, in the individual congregations.