This is the final post in this series, and I want to end with the conviction behind it all: the disciples are the brand. People learn what the church is by watching those of us who belong to it. Our life together tells them what we believe about Jesus, regardless of what our platform says.
And the church is not a corporate brand created for our consumption. It is a calling that consumes us.
That can be hard to hear. We spend much of our lives choosing things based on what they do for us. We read reviews before buying a device. We cancel subscriptions we no longer use. Finding something that meets our needs is usually considered good judgment.
We bring those habits to church, too. We like the preaching at one place, but another has more for the kids. Somewhere else feels more like us. Before long, we are evaluating a congregation much as we would anything else we might spend a Sunday morning doing.
I understand that. Choosing a church matters, especially when children are involved. Some congregations are unhealthy, and staying in one doesn't prove faithfulness. But even in a healthy church, belonging will eventually require something that being a satisfied customer does not.
Other people will disappoint us. A decision will go in a direction we would not have chosen. Someone will need more from us than we feel like giving. At that point, we begin to discover whether we have joined a people or simply found a place we enjoy.
The New Testament describes a belonging we cannot manage entirely on our own terms. Paul calls the church a body. Jesus called us a bunch of branches (He is the Vine). We are joined to Christ, which also joins us to people we might never have picked for ourselves.
I find that both beautiful and inconvenient.
It means someone else’s grief can interrupt my plans. Forgiveness becomes something I have to practice with an actual person, sometimes while I still think I am right. Being known means allowing someone close enough to notice the distance between who I claim to be and how I live.
No church program can do that work for us.
Jesus calls us to take up our cross and follow him. “Come and die” would be a tough sell on a church billboard, but we cannot leave it out of the invitation. Following him costs us some of the control we would prefer to keep. We learn to let go of having our way, including how we want to be seen.
We also discover that the life he gives us is worth more than the one we were so determined to protect.
That is why I keep coming back to repentance. We can recognize everything wrong with the church as a product and still try to solve it by producing something better. I can preach against consumption while quietly hoping people will admire how well I preached against it.
Pastors are in this, too. I am in this.
We have sometimes gathered crowds without giving enough attention to the people those crowds are becoming. We have taught congregations to expect constant production, then grown resentful when they expect us to keep producing. And some of what we call ministry ambition is our own need to feel successful.
We need to tell the truth about that before we ask the congregation to change.
Those of us in the pews have our own truth to face. Showing up matters, but attendance alone does not make us available to one another. We can want a close church family while keeping everyone at a comfortable distance. We can applaud a church’s commitment to serving its neighbors and assume the staff will handle it.
Repentance gets personal when we stop discussing what “the church” ought to do and acknowledge our own part in its life.
Nobody gets to stand outside this problem and grade everyone else. Every congregation includes people who are still learning to follow Jesus. There is grace for that. There is also a responsibility to keep learning.
And we can do that without treating the church across town as a threat.
Different congregations have different histories and callings. Those differences can be gifts. Another church doing good work in our community gives us something to be grateful for. Their growth does not diminish our faithfulness. God also doesn’t bless one church by punishing another.
The people were never ours to begin with. Christ is the head of the church, and that ought to loosen our grip considerably.
After eight posts about the church’s branding problem, I hope it is clear that I am concerned with the life behind the image. A congregation can have a beautiful website and still teach people that they are mostly there to watch. A pastor can build an impressive platform while becoming increasingly unavailable to the people nearby.
Eventually, our actual lives tell the story.
I want us to pay attention to that story. A person who is learning to forgive is evidence of something worth celebrating. So is a congregation that can face a difficult truth without turning on one another. When someone notices a neighbor’s need and makes room to help, the faith we profess has taken on flesh.
Much of this will never make it into a promotional video. It happens over time, often unnoticed, among people who keep letting Jesus work in them.
The disciples are the brand. That includes how we behave when we are tired, how we handle disagreement, and whether people see us as willing to love them when it costs us something.
I am writing this because I love the church. I have given much of my life to it, and I still believe we can learn to live together in ways that make Jesus' goodness visible.
But we will have to participate. We cannot outsource following Jesus to the people we pay or expect a Sunday service to carry the whole weight of our faith.
The church is a calling that reaches into the rest of our lives. Following Jesus together will ask more of us than we expected.