Friday, September 23, 2005

Church Sluts

Honestly, this isn't completely my fault.

We're rolling in the Caddy south on I-5 after a day of emerging talk and Scott talks about a question he asked about wether people are married or just dating the church. It's a common metaphor about how people don't commit to a body. People, generally, commit to a style or a preacher or to convience. Rare are the people who commit to a body through thick and thin. Rare and wonderful.

So, then the conversation moves along the lines of the dating metaphor and I have an epiphany:

"So, the people who just go church to church in dating relationships, would those people be called 'church sluts'?'"

After we all recovered we kind of followed that line of thought and decided it probably wouldn't sell as a book but is a very true thing.

I think those who are in emerging contexts will need to address this because it is the sin of our modern western baby-boomer parents, and the effects will carry on for a couple of generations. How can church promiscuity be ministered to? I believe there must be a direct and authentic commitment to communtiy (not affinity; affinity deals with convience and friendships, community includes these but works through difference and inconvience because of authentic commitment) in a local context. There must be a commitment to a local body, which is commited to the individual believers.

I wonder if, in the future, we will look at church sluts (church-hopping, shopping for a church) as a terrible sickness that invaded the church.

Further, will blame be put on the Christians themselves, or on their leaders for making them what they are through their market driven church models?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, church sluts...I don't think people take the time to even think about commitment to a body or group of believers. It's hard for some to commit to loving their own family in our culture. I bet mobile, "let's find a church with programs to fit our family's needs" (including youth programs) Americans don't have a clue that such a commitment would be expected by their Lord.

Brian Vinson said...

I agree with "anonymous" but I think we've watered down the commitment so much that too many don't even realize that each of us has a responsibility to the church, not just "what can I get out of it?"

If each Christian came into the Body with that attitude, and each new believer were integrated likewise, perhaps we'd have the beginnings of change. Perhaps.