By Amy Butler
The Associated Press recently reported on churches offering drive-thru blessings on Ash Wednesday. Pastors in my city offeredashes and blessings at the Metro stations so hurried commuters could get their Lenten fix on the way to work. And I guess “ashes on the go” is not so different from our church’s annual tradition of offering communion at a booth in the Capital Pride festival.
The idea behind all of these efforts, of course, is to make a spiritual experience more easily accessible to people who might not take the time or have the courage to set foot in a church.
But I am starting to wonder if maybe these efforts are contributing to a pervasive kind of consumer mentality when it comes to church. We see it all over every other part of life, so why not church? It’s what people expect; it’s what the masses want; it’s what appeals to the biggest number. But when we make it so easy, are we giving people an accurate picture of what it takes to be the church?
Particularly during Lent, I have to wonder if we’re actually doing people a disservice by making things too easy and too convenient. After all, we’re in the time of the church year when we remember Jesus’ journey to the cross. Where he died. Not, I am thinking, an experience of convenience by any stretch of the imagination. If we’re meant to be followers of Jesus — if that’s what the ashes and the bread and cup mean — then should we be making this drive-thru easy?
I’ve been mulling over these thoughts for a few weeks now, and then on Sunday they came to my attention again. On the way out the sanctuary door, where all shocking and life-changing conversations with the pastor happen, a worship attendee shook my hand and mentioned that she was letting me know she wanted her baby baptized on Easter Sunday.
I was a little taken aback, partially because I don’t know the mother or baby very well and rarely see them, along with the fact that Easter worship is an untamable animal even without extra special events in the service, not to mention that we’re Baptists SO WE DON’T BAPTIZE BABIES.
Later I thought: are we church leaders the ones creating interactions like this?
Are we conditioning people to treat spiritual life like they would any other consumable product? In the pursuit of new members and enough money to meet the budget are we selling out to consumer religion? Are we making the way of Jesus so easy and so convenient that we’re misrepresenting the true rigors of Christian discipleship? Do we represent the challenge and joy-filled experience of Christian community as a club with cushy benefits for members?
I can’t stand the thought that I might be contributing to this trend. I say our challenge is to remember always that becoming faithful disciples of Jesus might not always be a reflection of success as the world defines it. And there’s no need to give in to consumer culture when it comes to faith. After all, Jesus called us to follow, not to feel good.
We want to share our faith, to invite others into a life of following Christ. But if we’re not careful the way of Jesus can veer off into some other way, a way that resembles our constant need to consume and enjoy rather than to sacrifice and serve. Perhaps “Take up your cross and follow me” was our first clue that Jesus wasn’t thinking too hard about successful mass marketing when he came to share the gospel.
It could be that I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe drive-thru religion is the trend of the future. I‘m just not convinced I want the challenge of following Jesus to be too easy. If it is, I might forget his rigorous call. And I need to remember.
So, convenience notwithstanding, I think I’ll still take “Body of Christ broken for you” over “Would you like fries with that?” any day.