The revival will not be televised
The church I go to up here is about to begin the famous “40 Days of Purpose”. Yay. I started out fairly neutral on the idea – it’s been going through other churches in town, and I’d heard favorable comments from various friends, but it’s “in”, and I like “in” things in church no more than I like fads anywhere else.
I’ve been getting progressively less interested, though, because it’s not just a book. It’s a book, it’s a website, it’s a whole series of conferences, it’s available in Spanish, it’s a televised simulcast on Oct. 9, it’s a small group study series (several of them, apparently), it’s a whole canned revival that turns the entire church into a “purpose driven” church. Which means they’ve got a purpose statement, and they do stuff to fulfill their purpose statement. It comes with a whole new “purpose-driven” organizational structure, too. Please note that the carefully-timed purpose-driven schedule for a purpose-driven revival must be followed “to receive optimum customer care”.
And the result? “The PD DNA is implanted in every cell of the Body of Christ.” Not, “the members of the congregation are led to walk more closely with God than ever before”. Not “the church gains a new sense of urgency in reaching the lost and a real desire to sacrifice everything to win their community”. We just get our copy of the purpose-driven DNA, just like all the other customers out there.
Now, I’m not knocking the specific purposes. There’s nothing there that isn’t quite clearly commanded already. There’s nothing there that the church shouldn’t already be doing. But do we really need a complete pre-packaged money-back revival to tell us so? Was the Great Awakening a failure because it didn’t come with a book, and a small group study guide, and a video, and a CD of purpose-driven worship music to the latest beat, and a set of skits for the youth group to do, and a brand new plan for church leadership? Evidently. Thank God we’ve got Rick Warren to tell us what to do, with a Real Business Plan and a Purpose Statement and stuff. ‘Cause church is really just a business, after all.
