Eugene Peterson on the Commercialization of the Church

"Worship is also continuously at risk, but with worship the danger is commodification, being debased into a commodity for consumers who are shopping for the best buy in God or the latest in spiritual fashions. But the moment that God or the things of God are packaged and then advertised as programs or principles or satisfaction, we are depersonalized, diminishing our capacity to love. There is not much chance of growing to the measure of the stature of Christ in a place of worship that markets goods and services stamped with a God logo. The very place and time given us to cultivate conditions congenial for acquiring an understanding of and companionship in the practice of love is no longer available.
"The extensive commodification of worship in America has marginalized far too many churches as orienting centers for how to live a more effective life for God. What the secular culture has done to love by romanticizing it into fornication and the practice of adultery, the ecclesial culture has done by promoting ways of worship calculated to appeal to consumer tastes in which love is redefined as 'Oh, I like that,' or 'I have to have that,' or negatively as 'I don't get anything out of that.'"
-Eugene Peterson, Practice Resurrection, pg 219-20

We Live in Noah's Ark

Some food for thought for tonight from Telford Work:

In spite of all of their failings, "Our theological tradition is like Noah's ark: leaky, dark, smelly, confining, sometimes even oppressive. The alternative is free, light, fresh, open, - and fatal.
"What do we do on the ark? We muck out the stalls. We bail out the water. We fix leaks and try not to cause bigger ones in the process. We go up on deck to search for the land we've been promised - the back down to do the jobs on which our lives, all of our lives, depend. And we thank God for every new breath we take, even if every new breath carries a stench that 'could knock a yak flat.'"

For all of you who despair about the church, who think that Christians make Christianity unworthwhile, or who want to determine their own definition of what we should be doing because what they see God demanding of them is not good enough, perhaps there is some hope and encouragement in Telford's words. While the church is an imperfect glimpse of God's kingdom, it is a glimpse nonetheless, and it is the only one God has chosen to give to us.