Evangelicalism's Gingerbread House
Thursday, May 13, 2010 at 10:00AM | by Otter Hansel and Gretel, effectively orphaned, wander in the woods seeking whatever it is that kids who are effectively orphaned seek in the woods.
Dude! A gingerbread house! Rock on, Gretel! Zoom, Hansel!
But wait, kids! This house belongs to a frightening wart-riddled underworld babushka who means to fatten you up and eat you.
Considered from a certain point of view, there's nothing wrong with a little enterprise. My own view is that evil witches have to eat too, and anybody who goes to the trouble of making a gingerbread house to attract fresh meat is just engaging in a sound deployment of capital and labor to maximize return.
Deplorable, I know: but then Adam Smith always was a little bit grim.
This age, like all ages, is the age of the gingerbread house. Lure 'em in. Sell 'em what you think they need. Get what's coming to you. Witches gotta eat, salesmen need to live, ad executives have kids to get through college, lawyers need a new pair of shoes.
Oh. And youth ministers and senior pastors have to show an upward curve on membership or something.
So they put up the gingerbread houses. Get the kids in the door. Spring them into the Jesus oven. It's good for them: all that sugar, and Jesus too.
Howsoever You Dick Around The Least of My Brethren.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not anti-evangelical, exactly. I'm not one any more (largely because of bullshit like this), but I think evangelicalism gives a form to a very valid and potentially good subjective experience.
But all this is part of a weird idea that relevance is relevant, that Jesus is a hip young thing who's got as much in common with John Mayer as he does with Che Guevera (the resemblance to Che is sometimes striking, to Mayer, not so much. "My Body is a wonderland.")
Worse than that, Christians are getting proud of it. Consider this proud, smarmy little piece of church-fewmet, which proves "We're so hip we can laugh at ourselves," though clearly if the über-hip (?) North Point Church really thought they were ridiculous, they'd make a change, so I'm not sure where the laughter is supposed to lie.
"Sunday's Coming" Movie Trailer from North Point Media on Vimeo.
Slick Christian hey-we're-cool marketing is not new, alas.
What's sad about the North Point video is that it shows a dim awareness that slick marketing is incongruent with Christianity's message... but they're telling a joke they don't believe in. They don't believe it's ridiculous. Which calls into question how you'd know what they really believe.
I'm not about to tell anybody they can't do this. Hey, give the people what they want. And for all I know everybody at North Point Church leads an exemplary life of Christian service. Their website indicates they're into all sorts of good works, which I can get behind, sort of. But taking a sick family a casserole is something that isn't made any more real because there's a house-band.
And all that gingerbread just leaves me feeling queasy and wondering what the price will be when they start telling me the feel good moment is over and it's time to take up my cross and follow. It's a plush velvet cross, according to the marketing.
Does it work for some people? Great. But to what end?
Otter
Hmm. I guess I'm not comfortable with the judgmentalism in this post.
I should probably emend it to say, I think it's silly and shallow to be relevant: I think things that are truly relevant can be translated into modern contexts without substantial loss. And I see a tremendous disconnect between the seriousness of the New Testament and this sort of glitzy surface clutter. But you gotta do what you think matters. So I retract that "incongruant with the Christian message."
Churches, Entertainment, Evangelicalism, Jesus in Culture 
Reader Comments (18)
I dunno. I guess I’m going to have to disagree with you here. I think this piece is all about this church’s attempt at being honest with themselves. This is a caricature, and a good (funny) one, imo. It’s compelling because it hits close to home. Maybe the reason I’m answering this post is because the video looks a good bit like the church I worship with right now. I get it and I think they are about something serious. I don’t think they are arrogantly missing their own joke. I think this is designed as a reminder to this church and churches like it, that if all church is is a show to attend, then it really is a pointless exercise in shallow sentimentalism. I like that message and that reminder. You can dis the package all you want. Hey, maybe it’s not your style, but I suspect there is substance there, a real Christianity that seeks to heal and grow and serve the world. That can be culturally packaged any number of ways from Quaker silence to Orthodox incense to Swahili dancing to metrosexual crooning. And popular doesn’t necessarily mean shallow. That is just sour grapes. I’m no fan of a market-driven ecclesiology that temps us to treat church like any other consumer product, but on the other hand, Christianity (and evangelicalism in particular with its notoriously cheesy, decade-late approach to style and design) has marginalized itself for too long by treating style, art, and music as if it were something “worldly” or “enticing” or “arrogant.” We had better be careful about celebrating our human capacities for art too much or that might somehow lead us away from God. But what if the art is the God in us? Why is “hip” human and consumeristic and “cheesy” or “serious” divine and self-effacing? Some of these churches are pushing the envelope with regards to art and style and I think that could be a good thing, as long as you recognize the pitfalls, the biggest one being that all styles become a formula at some point and run the risk of eviscerating the real message. But then some people call that liturgy, and I would argue that every church has one. Liturgy is important. It helps us know what to expect, but it is one of those double-edged sorts of things. This is a new liturgy. Maybe by poking some fun at themselves they can somehow manage to keep it real.
Thanks, Klomperklaus. What do you mean by "a real Christianity"? What, for you, is at the core?
Klomp, just another thought:
I found the video depressing because either it's ridiculous (and you should change, or stop calling it Christian worship) or it's not. If I mock my wife for being shallow, I'd better be ready to stand by that and laugh and say it's funny, or I'd better not mean it at all, in which case it's not terribly funny.
Good question. My impulse response is to say that real Christianity or maybe better real Christians are people in communities enacting the story of Jesus, the story that says love wins, that love restores what is broken and lost, that love redeems, that love reconnects us with God and with each other. The catch there is that enacting love often involves denying ones self. Shallow people don't do this. I think that is the difference. Is Christianity my personal panacea, or the source of and impetus behind my commitment to enact love in the world? Communities that give more than they take, that heal wounds, that restore what is lost and repair what is broken and work toward reconciliation and peace are real Christian communities in my mind.
I understand what you are saying here, but I think what they are challenging in the video is what is *can* be if there is no substance to back it up, not necessarily what they believe it *is.* (or maybe we could say it *is* this for some people and not for others, just as we could caricature high liturgy as dry rote meaningless repetition, which it is for some, but not for others)
Are you challenging the style or what you perceive as a lack of substance? What exactly do you want them to change?
Song lyrics like "May the bread on our tongues leave a trail of crumbs" come to mind.
Laughing, Shirley. That's truly awful. I think Mylon Lefevre or somebody used to have a song that ran, "Here I stand before you on my knees." Quality control, people!
Klomp: I don't really want them to change anything. It's working for them. If you like really slick, well-produced t.v. and carefully calibrated marketing, it's going to meet your needs. I have no problem with that for anybody that wants it.
I don't want it. I think it's silly, expensive, badly thought-out, and emerges from any place except the best regions of the human spirit. I don't want anything remotely like it. I get marketed to every day. Sunday's my day off.
Besides, I think that in a faith that established itself on the radical idea (and capital offense) that a crucified Jew and not a Roman aristocrat was Lord of heaven and earth, it's boring if not offensive to those for whom Christianity is not the best channel on but a bloody business.
And yes, you're right, a lot of it is a question of my style preferences. But also what I trust, or don't. I find it difficult to believe that people who can put that much energy into the manipulation of emotions have anything to offer me in terms of the things I really want and need.
Judgmental of me, I'm sure. But I'm not a happy guy. And when the lights, music, and video tell me it's time to be happy, I'm all "Fuck off." But then there are times when I'm not in the mood to plumb the profound depths of my own emotions to tap my devotion. I've sat in (and even played in) churches where we do the chorus until I guess the leader is satisfied that we've all got to the same emotional place. That's not community. That's marketing. That's propaganda or something. It's not love or faith, it just feels like it.
I see no reason why that should be part of my worship experience. It's hyper-real, it's not real. I dunno, maybe there's a cry-room for adults in these churches where people can go when their mood runs contrary to the group-feel.
But it makes them happy. Let 'em have it.
I love this song by Jon Foreman of Switchfoot called Instead of a Show.
I hate all your show and pretense
The hypocrisy of your praise
The hypocrisy of your festivals
I hate all your show
Away with your noisy worship
Away with your noisy hymns
I stop up my ears when you’re singing ‘em
I hate all your show
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
Your eyes are closed when you’re praying
You sing right along with the band
You shine up your shoes for services
There’s blood on your hands
You turned your back on the homeless
And the ones that don’t fit in your plan
Quit playing religion games
There’s blood on your hands
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show
Let’s argue this out
If your sins are blood red
Let’s argue this out
You’ll be one of the clouds
Let’s argue this out
Quit fooling around
Give love to the ones who can’t love at all
Give hope to the ones who got no hope at all
Stand up for the ones who can’t stand at all, all
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
I hate all your show
Instead let there be a flood of justice
An endless procession of righteous living, living
Instead let there be a flood of justice
Instead of a show
I hate all your show
Foreman hits 'em with the Amos-stick.
I'm not comfortable saying that they _don't_ do all that stuff. The way evangelicalism is trending it strikes me as veering simultaneously towards its best and worst selves:
Doing good, cultivating virtue and justice, and packaging that as a twenty minute rock video.
I guess the thing is, when there's that much thought going into image, how would you know what you had, really, except by hanging around? I've got better things to do with my time than sit waiting for the smoking gun or the shining halo.
In charismatic circles the word "discernment" crops up a lot, as in "discern the spirits." Well, okay, but how do you do that in a thicket of image?
I just don't think it needs to be that difficult, that plastic. If there's depth there, rock on. But I don't know how you'd know where the traps and snares are hidden.
I get this. I really do. And I don't know anything about North Point Church or what they are really all about, so I couldn't say if I thought they were the real deal or not. I also agree that this kind of over-the-top production is suspect smacks of masking something BUT, I've attended all kinds of churches over the years, from big professionally produced evangleicalish types to high church liturgical types to small funky charismatics to tiny quirky congregations, and I've been suprised at the ones that ended up being shallow and fake as opposed to the ones that ended up being the real deal, by which I mean real communities of love and sacrifice. And I don't think you can really know that about any congregation regardless of size or style without "hanging around" a bit. It's the price you pay, the risk you take, to enter into a community. Unfortunately, when you've been burned before it ups the ante significantly. There can be just as many traps and snares in a small, insular community as in a large, anonymous one and you won't find them in either one without investing the time or taking the risk. Self-protection is a bittersweet necessity. Maybe that is what he meant when he said "unless you become like little children..."
Me neither. And I'm not suggesting that is what it means. I just worry sometimes that because I have been burned before I might be making unfair tacit assuptions about the trustworthiness of certain other Christians and that that may not be fair. And I might be missing out because of that. So childlikeness might mean, at least on some level, the willingness to risk (again).
Good points as always.
But do you think there ever comes a point where one can say, "You guys are over-advertising and under-developing"? Where's that point for you?
For me, in cases where the advertising is so conspicuous, it's well past that point. Maybe I'm too idealistic or something.
But it seems like I shouldn't have to read critically through the promised emotion to find what's really being offered.
And it's a temperament thing as well as an age thing... I've been sold too many good moods, and this is one more. I don't want to keep buying products to find out where the duds are.
Yes, I do have a point where I have to walk away. And like you, I refuse to be sold a bill of goods. But I guess I feel like I've been burned just as badly, maybe even worse, by the non-advertisers. And having helped lead services and done worship music for a lot of years, I also get how you have to be when you are responsible for that and it's not always true to how you feel at the moment. Sometimes it is the opposite. I hated that, but I also recognized that I had a responsibility to get outside of myself during those times because I had a job to do. It is fake on one level, but it is also an act of service. I'm not sure it is an offense. But I like where I am now, in a way, because I can come in to the service in a rotten mood and I can sit in my chair and stew through the songs if I want and I have the space to work it out and I don't feel judged by anyone. I don't feel unrealistic expectations, or any expectations at all, really. But I'm not in leadership anymore either. I think "real" is in the heart, not in the style. I think this style can be performed by "real" people and I think this video may be evidence that these are actually some of the real ones, though I don't know that for sure. I guess that was my main point.
This has been a very timely conversation for me. Thanks.
Hey Guys! Just read this article and all the comments (a few days late, I am new to this blog).
I am a member of a church that is an International Strategic Partner of North Point. So in a sense I am a bit of an 'insider' when it comes to the background to this video. I thought it would be good to give a bit of background.
The video was designed for, and first played at, a conference where a whole bunch of local church leaders from around the world get together and the guys at NP give a bit of background to who they are and what they do and why they have found it effective within their context, in their areas of ministry. They do this not because they think they have all the answers (the conference is called Drive - because we're not there yet!), but because they found themselves in a position where people were looking to them for some answers. They do this in a very humble manner btw.
The video was designed to tell the conference attendee's that there is no recipe. That people should not be looking around and saying "Ooo they are doing that, lets do it like that". That the 'design' of a service or the pattern of the service is not the be-all-and-end-all, but rather the content is important. (How ridiculous was the content of that video?)
And while "service planning" and "service flow" are important within their context, it is only important in so far as it "creates an environment where the Holy Spirit is free to work". (That is not that they believe that the HS is unable to work in particular environments, just that some environments are more conducive than others, and we should be trying to help not hinder right?)
For context on what you have called their gingerbread house, one needs to understand their evangelism strategy. The main worship service environment at NP is designed to be a "foyer" environment. A foyer is where you expect guests to arrive, in the NP context a guest is someone who has had little or no recent exposure to church, or someone who has lost faith in church and Christianity in general. One of the main aims (but not the only one) for a foyer environment is that the guest will leave wanting to come back, that they might not have agreed with everything that happened or was said, but that they are sufficiently intrigued, even entertained, to want to come back. They don't dumb down the gospel or anything like that, but everything they do is filtered through the sieve of "someone went out on a limb to invite a friend to church today, don't mess up this opportunity to speak truth into that guest's life." (I can point you to a great book on the matter, but that might seem like I am peddling a book that can be purchased at the church store later :) )
Your analogy of a gingerbread house is actually quite fitting. But imagine a story rather where the two orphaned children get lost in the wood, and they find this gingerbread house, they go inside (you can even say they were lured inside), but instead of a wicked witch they find a loving father.
Thanks for making me think about this video past the "that was really funny" stage.
Ron, I very much appreciate your input here. It's nice to have an insider's perspective.
I think the part of your comments that most resonated positively with me was this:
I think it bears repeating that I'm not questioning anybody's bona fides or good intentions here, and I appreciate how elegantly you've put the "spirit" of the video.
Then there's this:
"Environment[s] where the Holy Spirit is free to work" is a phrase that disturbs me a little bit.What do you think that means, precisely?
I expect we'd agree that art of all sorts (that is, controlling the environment and the sensory inputs and therefore the emotional range of your congregation) predisposes people to one mood and not another. I get that.
I suspect that you mean that the "Foyer" here creates a set of emotional conditions in which people are more disposed to welcome the experience you mean to offer them and less disposed to resist it.
This is, of course, what advertising does as well, which does not make it automatically pernicious, but makes it awfully tiresome to me. And at the point that the band has my susceptibility at a high mark, it makes little difference to me whether they're selling me Buddha, or beer, or Mormonism, or the Holy Spirit, to be honest. And I think that's a huge design flaw here. If the Foyer is a place where one is introduced to what one is buying, all I see here is that you're selling music I don't much like, an emotional connection to your community that is bound to be as flimsy as the secular music that's being imitated, and a very generic sort of spirituality.
Naturally, I could be wrong. More power to you.
But based on the experience of the Foyer, as I understand it, the mockery in the video is spot on. I'm genuinely glad it works for some people. I can't imagine anything more repugnant than the union of slick marketing to the message of Jesus of Nazareth, and I can't imagine how anybody could object if Islam came up with slicker marketing and snared more souls. They've got a nicer Foyer, and in this flirtation with pop-culture sensibilities, that should win every time, without exception, regardless of the message.
Speaking for myself, this experience would be part of the culprit, not the solution.I tell ya, man, that doesn't sound so good. Again: glad it's working for some. But if you've got a gospel that has any power in it, you don't need this shit. If you tell a lame man to walk, like Peter and John, and just disappear into the crowd, people who need what you've got will tear the earth open to find you. If you wash each others' feet and welcome the stranger and count the lesser brother better than yourselves like you're supposed to, your radicalism will already surpass that of the hippies.You won't need a foyer except to store more people in.
Laughing. I appreciate the self-restraint, my friend: I think the idea is pretty clear.Maybe. I think if you guys have the love you hope you do, that'll pan out.But you gotta admit, anybody in a gingerbread house is after something. That much sweetening almost begs for an explanation: "what's so difficult in your gospel that you're afraid it will fail without all this?"
To be fair, I ask the same question of other ventures that are just trying to keep people coming back: "How bad must your beer suck if the only way I'll buy it is if it comes with a hot chick in a bikini? I mean, she looks really nice and everything, but she's kinda airbrushed, and a little cheap and plastic, and I get syphilis just looking at her too long, and what's she got to do with the Product, anyway?"
Honestly, this sort of slick marketing and music is why I rarely go to church anymore. If I find a church that is actually teaching me something, I find that because of my location (Phoenix-metro area) it's filled with retirees who don't want my children making noise & messes in "their" church. If I want my dc to be welcome, I have to put up with ear-splitting music I detest and watered-down messages that teach me nothing. Blech. I'll stay home, TYVM.
My mother used to say that "There are always two sides to every story, and both of them are true!" I know she was applying it to resolving sibling conflict, but I think it is appropriate in this context as well.
This is the beauty of the Christian Church, that we are so different but that at our core we are all people who need God and his grace.
The kinds of people however that are attracted to one form of church are probably the same people who were turned off by another. That the kind of people who find NP's service style unattractive are the same people who would fit into a church that would be unattractive to the people who find NP style attractive. Both sides are true and while they are vastly different do not (or should not) claim that the other is false.
Rather than comparing them to a beer commercial. It might be more constructive to compare the North Point foyer environment to the lollipop that a Dr gives a child. The foyer is a lollipop to a child whose last experience at the doctor made them wish never to darken the door of the Dr's rooms again.
I'm not going to try and counter argue all our differences (probably because you would beat the crap out of me in a debate :) ). But there are two points I would like to offer additional clarification on.
The whole concept of the Holy Spirit being free to work is, I agree, one that can be, as you put it, disturbing. I am not saying that the Holy Spirit can't use any and every situation, I believe it can. I have also however sat through many a church service in a frame of mind that is completely closed off to the Holy Spirit. This was because of my failing. Whether it was because of a fight I had with my wife on the way out of the house or a car that cut me off in traffic, something got in the way and the Pastor/Priest's efforts that week in in communicating God's truth to me were completely wasted. However if the church had made an effort, they could have dissolved my metal/spiritual wall, by making me laugh (for example). There are any number of obstacles that could be in the way of a church attendee (or a first or long time visitor to Church) connecting with the Holy Spirit. North Point, and churches like it, try to remove as many of these obstacles as they can.
The other point I wish to clarify is the idea that a foyer is where you store people. Much like the foyer in your own house, the idea is that people move through the foyer to something else. In North Points example they would like every attender to move through the foyer into a small group (community group, cell group, discipleship group or whatever else we want to call them). So while people will in all likelihood return to the foyer again and again, that is not the destination.
In the end I sincerely believe that this is a "different strokes" thing. You might disagree with me, which is also ok. In the end though the question really should be is it bearing fruit? Check this out: (I apologize in advance for the cheesy church name, one of the failings of democracy is that the majority don't always know best.)
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