Avoiding Culinary Homiletical Snobbery in the Church
I recently read a rather disturbing statement in a recent Ligonier Tabletalk article about a woman whose family left a church, complaining of a lack of fellowship opportunities – a statement that bewildered the elders because they could see the family was not taking advantage of many fellowship opportunities that existed. She later admitted to the elders that she was seeking a church with an active Facebook community. What’s the problem here? She was seeking fellowship on her terms. Fellowship that didn’t match exactly what they were looking for, even though it was genuine and biblical, simply wasn’t good enough. And so they moved on. This silly little “imperfection” in the church was reason to break fellowship.
My main concern here is not the threshold for leaving a church. I will be the first to say that sheep need to be cared for, and that there are many legitimate reasons to leave a church. My concern is the consumer-type mindset that all too often underlies this statement. So many people sitting in the pews are there primarily for their own benefit – and not that of the Kingdom.
Here’s a more subtle example. One of the more common reasons people will give for leaving a church is “I wasn’t being fed.” I’ve heard it firsthand many times; I’ve even said it myself at times in my past. And it’s certainly a legitimate concern. Jesus told Peter before his ascension, “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17). New Testament writers repeatedly refer to teaching with the analogy of food (1 Corinthians 3:2, 1 Peter 2:2, Hebrews 5:12-14). The most fundamental task of an elder is to preach the Word, and thus to feed the flock.
Yet as I hear and read this statement in more and more places, I’m beginning to have some misgivings. I fear that too many Christians use these words as a way to justify their own ecclesiastical consumerism – in other words, all too many Christians are looking for a church that meets their own perceived “needs” and gives them what they think they want. I fear that this is beginning to define our very view of the church, that it is infecting our ecclesiology.
I fear that particularly in our (Reformed) circles, where robust, meaty teaching is held in high esteem (and rightly so!) we may be prone to looking at the church primarily as a place where the flock are fed. This is a subtle error, but a very real one, and one that threatens the unity and integrity of churches. Looking at the church as first and foremost a feeding place is the same as looking at the family as primarily the supper table, or at a military base as being most importantly the mess hall. How much sense does that make?
If Caden, Cayleigh, and Liana grow up thinking of the family as, first and foremost, a great place to eat, Erin and I will feel like failures. If the most important thing a soldier does on base is eat, we’d have an awfully “large” army! This should not be so. The church is like the family and like a military base in that it feeds those it cares for not as an end in itself, but as a means to a greater end.
If feeding the flock is not the highest purpose of the church, what is? An easy answer is “the glory of God”; a more precise answer is “worship.” But how do we worship? I submit to you that the highest functional purpose of the church is to magnify the glory of God by training and equipping Christians to worship God in all they do.
The analogies of a family and a military base are carefully chosen. The family exists for what purpose? Not to feed the kids; anyone can do that. The family exists for the purpose of raising up “godly offspring” (Malachi 2:15). A military base exists for what purpose? Not feeding the troops; the majority of them have homes off-base and shop at the grocery store nowadays. The military base exists for the purpose of supporting and equipping and training the troops for war.
Similarly, the church, and especially those placed in leadership in the church, are given by God for the purpose of equipping and training the saints. The “feeding” with Scripture is actually a means to an end. Scripture is given to the church not for its members’ personal and individual benefit but for “teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” The desired end state is not simply theologically mature Christians, not even Christians of godly character in themselves, but a people purified for God’s possession who are zealous for good works (Titus 2:14).
This is why a church that does not “feed” its flock is useless – because without a steady and balanced diet of Scripture, the sheep will remain immature and useless. But this is also why a Christian who finally finds a church with a healthy “meal plan,” and who plants himself firmly at the buffet line and is content to sit and eat, is just as useless. It’s so tempting to be passive in the church, to simply take in the teaching we are given but not stand up from the table at the end of the day and help clear the dishes.
There are several specific dangers rising from this consumeristic attitude:
a) A consumeristic focus on “feeding” as an end in itself will turn Christians into homiletical culinary snobs. There are master “chefs” in the Christian world, the MacArthurs and the Pipers and the Azurdias, who can prepare a beautifully arranged and presented gourmet meal for the flock from the ingredients in the Word. The sheer reality, however, is that God uses rather ordinary jars of clay to bring his treasures (“meat and potatoes,” maybe?) to most of his people. Christians who look at their spiritual “eating” as an end in itself will often come to disdain their own elders’ biblical cuisine as being less worthy than that of the “chefs” they like to sample at conferences or over the Internet. This misses not only the fact that the meal should be just as nutritious from their own elders (being prepared, after all, from the same ingredients!) as from the master “chefs”; it also misses the fact that the meal is being given to strengthen them for battle.
b) A consumeristic focus on “feeding” as an end in itself results in missed opportunities for service. I can’t help but think that if the lady and her family mentioned in the Tabletalk article, who were looking to their church to “feed” their perceived need for Facebook fellowship, might have wound up staying in the church and contributing meaningfully to its ministry had they stopped viewing the church as a place to be taken advantage of for their own benefit and started looking at it as a place to prepare them to benefit the Kingdom. This family missed opportunities for genuine, edifying fellowship because they were so fixed on their own desires’ fulfillment. I daresay that even if they found what they were looking for, they and their church would have been no better off.
c) A consumeristic focus on “feeding” as an end in itself can often result in an arrogant and hypocritical search for the “perfect” church. I’ve known Christians who change churches every few months because they find something wrong – either a minor point in the teaching that they disagree with, or a person who rubbed them the wrong way, or the cancellation of a favorite program. Such people are doomed to wander forever, because the thing they seek doesn’t exist.
Our desire as elders is to be faithful to God and bring a healthy diet of the meat and pure milk of God’s word to you. However, we don’t do so as an end in itself. We want to see the congregation grow in maturity and begin to share their food – and themselves – with others. The Bible calls every member of the church to be a priest. Every Christian is called to make disciples, to encourage, to admonish, to bear burdens, to do good works. And not just through the “programs” of the church; there are no lack of ministry opportunities just within the church, even (maybe even primarily) outside of formal ministry structures.
So let's avoid the temptation of passivity. Don’t fall into the trap of theological consumerism. Consider your gifts; pray for discernment; seek out opportunities to minister to others.