I wrote this for r/TrueChristian, but thought you all here might appreciate this as well. Given that it's more for r/TrueChristian, I covered "churchianity" as a concept from an angle that they'd be more apt to identify with (mostly structural issues) than delving into the ways this mentality has allowed culture to influence specific doctrines (ex. feminist ideologies taking over). But hopefully you find it useful all the same. Feel free to participate in either thread, especially if you're already a regular at r/TrueChristian anyway.


A few years ago I started hearing a term creep up: churchianity. At first, I assumed it was just a contrived way of mocking church culture. As I looked into it further, it seems that the word-play is an appropriate pun. Consider:

  • Christ-ianity is the name by which we identify the faith of anyone who serves Christ and his mission as their operative spiritual pursuit.

  • Church-ianity, then, is the name by which people have begun identifying the faith of those who serve the church and its mission as their operative spiritual pursuit.

The distinction is subtle and may seem trite, but in my observation of numerous congregations, I believe it is far more significant than we realize. And what makes it so difficult to deal with is that this shift happens not as a result of over-zealous church planters or mega church pastors (although that can be a part of it), because sometimes the leadership actively tries to fight against this focus shift. Rather, it comes from the culture of the congregants themselves - and in such powerful ways that the leadership doesn't know how to stop it. Here are a few (far from exclusive) issues to ponder.

NOTE: I recognize that this post is likely to tick off a lot of people. Read my caveat section at the end before picking too many bones.


Idolatry

First, it is dangerous to assume the church is synonymous with Christ. It is not. The Church is Christ's bride. It is no more Christ than the Father is the Son. Yes, they are one. No, they are not the same. When we falsely assume that everything our "church" does must come from Christ (because, you know ... it's "the church"), we subliminally exalt the leadership of the church almost to idolatry status. The average congregant will not challenge what their pastor says (even if the pastor tells them to); rather, they will just take his word for it, assuming that because of his title he must be God's appointed person over the congregation, and thus trustworthy in what he teaches.

The reality is that the pastor's preaching is a convenience. There are others in the congregation who could preach - possibly even better than the pastor. I'm connected to two congregations whose pastors resigned. One went almost 3 years without a pastor, the other a few months and counting, but have yet to lack for quality preaching. I do recognize that the pastor is being paid to do it. But that doesn't excuse the inevitable mutual co-dependent loyalty that's formed because of the consistency in the spotlight. So, we let him keep preaching and preaching. At best, they'll have 2-3 go-to people to cover in a pinch, but rarely seek beyond this to train those gifted at preaching to hone their talent in a context that benefits the body. Of course you can't do that. That would break the brand, of which the pastor is the face. The congregation is there because they love their pastor (statistically the #1 reason people pick a church), not because they want to learn and grow the most through a team of capable preachers.

  • CHURCH-ianity: People are here to see the pastor, so let's give them the pastor. You don't need new leaders to share the spotlight, even if they have an important message the body needs to hear. Their message can be told to the pastor who can relay it his own unique way. Don't bother training new preachers.

  • CHRIST-ianity: Jesus raised up a team of leaders who he delegated to. He never intended to keep the spotlight for long, always planning after a short few years to turn the reigns over to them to preach the Gospel. He could have stuck around for years after ascending, but limited his time to pass the baton.


Neglect of Scripture

The churchianity mentality also causes people to lose the imperative to search the Scriptures for themselves, believing instead that we have God's representatives on earth (pastors, denomination heads, papacy, etc.) defining doctrine and interpretation for us. I remember once where our pastor even prodded the congregation: "Challenge me on this! Look it up. How do you know I'm not interpreting this wrong?" Yet when I asked my small group of 14 or so people, not a single one had actually done it.

On the other end, I once attended a men's group that decided to study the book of James. As required, we reported our intent to the elder over the men's groups. He denied our request. "We have no way of knowing if you're going to interpret it properly [read: the way the pastor does], so we'd rather you stick to a book the pastor has already approved." I kid you not. I shared this story with a few friends and heard similar stories in return. Apparently this isn't as uncommon as I would have expected. [Yes, I did end up persuading the pastor to let us study the Bible anyway.]

I was in a conversation with another pastor once, developing a list of basic spiritual disciplines. I included "Bible study." He disagreed, saying, "I'd remove that one. People don't need to know how to study the Bible for themselves if I can study it for them. After all, that's why I went to seminary and they didn't."

  • CHURCH-ianity: Your pastor is your primary source for spiritual knowledge and understanding. Yes, read your Bible for yourself, but there's no need to study it deeply because you can always just ask the guy who went to seminary.

  • CHRIST-ianity: Jesus taught people to think for themselves. Luke (in Acts 17) commended the Bereans for challenging Paul's teaching against Scripture to see if he preached truth before taking his word for it - and this was called "more noble" than those who didn't.


Contrived or Stale Small Group Ministries

I recently moved, which gave me the opportunity to visit a number of new congregations and research the small group ministries. I was shocked to find that VERY few congregations have actual Bible studies anymore. Even the ones that did call themselves "Bible studies" turned out to be book studies about biblical topics where verses may have been referenced to support the author's point. The last 4 small groups I have attended (except for the ones I've led) never once utilized Scripture directly; rather people just quoted verses they knew when it was relevant to the conversation.

From the congregations I've looked into lately, it seems the current trend among small groups is either (1) to limit them to 6-8 week sessions that you must register for, or (2) to categorize groups into such things as common interest groups, (untrained) group therapy sessions, service project groups, book "study" groups (where most people skim the chapter the night before), or any other number of things that don't require their members to open the Bible. Some congregations do both. All of these structures feel incredibly manufactured/forced, rather than developed through authentic relationships. People walk away feeling good, but when I ask people how their lives changed as a result of their most recent small group (6-8 week) session, they usually only addressed how it made them feel better. Very few could articulate an actual life change either in outward ministry or in managing their own internal struggles. If I asked what they learned, the responses were obvious things that they clearly already knew before even starting the group.

  • CHURCH-ianity: Your congregation needs a thriving small group ministry if you want to feel successful. This means seeing as many people participate as possible. True Bible studies are boring, so you're not likely to get many people to join. You'll get higher participation numbers and more positive reviews if you keep the commitment level low and don't give clear expectations for what changes people should be experiencing through their small group.

  • CHRIST-ianity: Jesus formed a small group and called out his apostles when they weren't showing signs of the growth he was looking for. He explained the Scriptures to them. He expected them to apply what they were learning, and he sent them out to teach these things to others beyond the group. He met with them for long enough to build a relationship, but a short enough time and with clear enough forewarning that they knew they would be expected to carry on the work he started.


Incongruent Social Dynamics

Nearly half of Americans report sometimes or always feelign alone (46%) or left out (47%). 27% rarely or never feel as though there are people who really understand them. 43% feel that their relationships are not meaningful. 18% feel like they have no one they can talk to. Living with your children doesn't have a statistical impact on the degree of loneliness you feel. Adults aged 18-22 are the loneliest generation to date. Source. I thought, "Surely all the community-focus of churches should mean Christians are better off," right? But I couldn't find any evidence that churchgoers were any better off.

I once asked several people in one of my congregations a series of questions. (1) "Do you have friends in the church?" Everyone unanimously said yes. (2) "What are their names?" Most could name 5 people. Many could even include last names, which was a good sign. (3) "How often do you call these people just to talk (i.e. not needing a specific purpose)?" Not a single man and very few women said they did this. (4) "How often do you see these people outside of a ministry/church function or primarily ministry-related conversations?" The vast majority admitted that they didn't have any such contact. Even when they met someone for coffee or a meal, the conversation ended up being primarily related to ministry issues. (5) One more shot: I asked if they felt comfortable calling up any of these "friends" to see a movie that day. I don't think anyone I asked did, most people answering, "That's just not the type of thing we do together." I asked if they had anyone else in their life they could do these things with and most said they did. I asked what types of things they DO do together with their church friends, and the answers always involved churchy functions.

This is really concerning to me. When our passion for our "church" is inflated it becomes difficult to build actual friendships with those in the congregation. For one, the leadership generally fills so much of our time with manufactured social activities that organic relationships get lost in the cogwork. More significantly, an internal pressure develops to separate our "church life" from our "normal life" and we assume that "church people" wouldn't care about watching a Netflix show with us, or attending a concert together, or playing a sport together. The exception is, of course, when it's church-organized, as with interest groups or church softball teams. This creates a barrier so that true koinonia oneness can never truly develop, as the relationships are context-based and not those of true unity. I've written much more on this topic HERE.

  • CHURCH-ianity: Leaders - You need to keep people committed to your community. The best way to do that is to use the church community itself as the context for their social interactions so that they will associate their relationships with your church. People - If you want church people to like you, they'd better see you doing church things. It's better not to include them in the non-church parts of your life because that's just awkward and you don't know what they'd think. That's what you have your other friends for.

  • CHRIST-ianity: Proverbs 17:17 says, "A friend loves at all times," not just during ministry events or when some great need compels sharing love. Jesus prayed for true oneness in John 17, not a segregated lifestyle that divides different aspects of our lives among different people. Jesus did everything together with his apostles, and they with each other. No aspect of their lives was limited or cut off from each other.


Spiritual Branding

(1) Competition and Politics

Congregations have learned to become competitive. They have also learned that competition among congregations is frowned upon, so they know key phrases to keep people from recognizing the competition. For example, I recently spoke to a staff worship leader for a congregation of about 500-600 adults who told me that they pray for other congregations every week - that God would be moving in their services also. What a kind-hearted thing to do, right? I asked about what prompted them to start doing that and his answer was: "The pastor said we should start doing this because people might leave if they thought we felt threatened by the new megachurch that moved into town, and praying to support them would help maintain our goodwill with the people who will appreciate our non-competitive nature." I totally get what he was saying - but do you not see how political that response is? It wasn't because they actually have a heart for the success of other congregations in reaching the city for the Gospel. It's to keep members.

I've also noticed at my previous congregation that anyone who became part of any leadership team had to sign a covenant stating that they will not speak negatively about the congregation on social media. Sure, that could really damage the congregation's reputation, and many agitators are out of line. But what if there is actual corruption going on that needs to be exposed? I've seen too many congregation leaders try to cover it up in order to preserve brand integrity. To make someone promise loyalty to the preservation of the brand name over loyalty to professing truth - that's dangerous and off-focus. Better conditional wording can be used rather than the blanket statement I saw, and which I expect is common elsewhere too.

  • CHURCH-ianity: You need to say the right things to build loyalty and trust with your congregation.

  • CHRIST-ianity: You need to be worthy of people's loyalty and trust to lead them properly. Phil. 1:27, for example.

(2) Member Poaching

I asked on another meeting with that same worship leader how many people in their congregation were new converts as opposed to people who left another congregation (especially given that this is what they were afraid someone else would do to them). Turns out: 92% of their adult attendees were previously involved regularly in another congregation. Much of the other 8% were kids raised in the church who had become adults recently. Little actual spiritual seed was being cultivated. I've heard the growth rates from member poaching for most new plants are comparably high.

But this is how it is now. People do feel some pressure to invite others to "go to church Sunday service" with them. But they have no confidence to share their faith with nonbelievers, so they resort to inviting friends who go to other congregations to "check out our congregation instead," and then they get recognition from the pastor for "bringing someone new into the fold." In the absence of generational discipleship, this comes off looking like most people jumping from foster home to foster home - or more like group home to group home, as the leadership doesn't have the ability to give the personalized parental attention that individual foster homes potentially can.

  • CHURCH-ianity: Your church is awesome. People would be better off at your church than wherever they're currently going. If you can get non-Christians in too, that's great, but the church will grow faster if you focus on getting people who are dissatisfied with their current church to make the switch. After all, you've got a financial bottom line to meet - especially if you, church plants, want to be able to afford a building of your own someday. Besides, I'm sure that other congregation is preaching something false somewhere, so you're justified in wanting their people to hear the truth on those issues.

  • CHRIST-ianity: Philippians 2:3-4 says, "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves." The apostles preached that all believers everywhere were under a common, singular baptism, Spirit, purpose, and love. While we may have differences of theological opinion, the ultimate imperative is to share the Gospel with new believers, not to convert other believers to our particular brand of what we call truth.

(3) Marketing Campaigns

What's more interesting in all of this is that these congregations are pumping their brand more than they pump the name of Jesus. I currently have a stack of cards in my kitchen that say "Ethos" on them (the name of the congregation) without the name of Jesus anywhere. It doesn't even reference the Bible or use any verses. For that matter, it doesn't even acknowledge itself as a church. It's literally just "Ethos" with an address and some internet links for Snapchat and Facebook, etc. For all anyone knows, just by looking at the card they could assume it's an invitation to a private gentleman's club. While Christ might be preached inside the walls, when the congregation leaves those 4 corners the message is not, "Come find Jesus." It's, "Come find Ethos."

I believe many congregation leaders recognize this and actively attempt to mitigate the damage by being Christ-centered in the preaching on Sunday mornings (though certainly not all). But what they don't pick up on is that the buzz created by the congregation in response is about how awesome the preaching at [Your Congregation Name Here] is, not about how great Jesus is. Their excitement is not to tell others what they learned about Jesus that week. Their excitement is about how great their congregation is and how much they want others to join the congregation with them.

  • CHURCH-ianity: Your community needs to know about your congregation.

  • CHRIST-ianity: Your community needs to know about Jesus.


Lifecycle of an Institution

There's a time-tested path showing how any great movement begins and dies. It goes something like this:

  1. Man With a Vision - Every movement begins with one of these.

  2. Growth - If people like his vision, they start following and living it out.

  3. Organization - At some point, it becomes necessary to organize in some capacity so that the fringe edges of the growth don't lose sight of the vision.

  4. Institutionalization - When growth becomes large enough, people lose the ability to distinguish the vision from the organization that started it. They become more interested in the growth of the organization than the fulfillment of the vision. The original vision becomes a publicity point for the organization as why people should join, rather than the driving imperative that those who join are actually expected to live by.

  5. Death and Rebirth - Eventually, people become dissatisfied with the lack of vision, a new visionary rises up from within the ranks and starts the process over again.

In Bridging the Great Divide, Rob McCorkle notes how he (and others before him) have observed this pattern repeatedly among congregations. The very word "churchianity" is a testament to the fact that the focus on the church has gradually replaced the focus on Christ. In doing so, we have moved from organization toward institutionalization. People are now more interested in promoting their brand of "church" than they are in studying Scripture, making disciples, etc.

This is most obvious in the things that most "church shoppers" are looking for today - charisma of the pastor, contemporary or traditional music style, which songs are played, the quality of the kid's ministry, if anyone bothers to talk to them, etc. In fact, the study from Pew Research on the topic doesn't even list anything like "sound doctrine" or "biblical foundation" on their list of criteria people referenced when discussing church shopping. What people are interested in today are the mechanics of the structure and the presentation of those who run it. People are going to "church" to find something, that's for sure. But it's not usually Jesus they're looking for. I pray to God that they find him there anyway.


CAVEATS

As I include in most of my posts, let me clarify some things.

  1. I recognize that not all pastors/congregations are this way.

  2. I don't believe most congregations struggle with all of these issues; rather, only two or three might really hit close to home.

  3. I recognize that there is value in branding, to some degree (though I see little Scriptural foundation for this missiological model, except perhaps a stretched interpretation of 1 Cor. 9).

  4. I freely admit that it's acceptable for someone to love and be excited about the institution they attend.

  5. Many congregations that have succumbed to a "churchianity" mentality still do preach Christ in a number of ways - and I refrain with Paul when he says, "And because of this I rejoice," whether such preaching is "from false motive or true" - and I also recognize that someone can have right motives with poor execution.

  6. Yes, some brands are genuinely dangerous and should be preached against. In this sense, there is certainly some value in competing with false-brands that are likely to lead people to hell or do more damage to the Kingdom than they do good. But be gracious in your assessment of others on this point.

I could probably come up with more, but I'm sure you'll all ream me in the comments with the ones I missed, so I can add them later.

Impact of Being on Reddit

That said, just because YOU aren't that way in your congregation doesn't mean others aren't. Bear in mind that we are on reddit, so you're probably not going to see a lot of this branding (except perhaps on a denominational level, as those do come up frequently here). It's not exactly practical to expect many people here to show up to your Sunday service, so it's unlikely we're going to see a lot of people pumping their own brand on reddit as much as happens within congregations and local communities.

Also, this sub is specifically geared toward those who want to go deeper. While it's plainly apparent to me that many people on this sub struggle with the churchianity mentality I'm describing here, my guess is that the relative quantity you'll find on a sub like this is lower than you'll see among local, off-line, in-person congregations that aren't specifically targeting those who want to take their faith seriously. To this end, r/Christianity might be a better snapshot of the type of mentality I'm talking about that is more representative of broader church culture than r/TrueChristian represents (at least, I hope this distinction can be made).

In an online ministry like this, you'll find people less interested in pushing their congregation as the "brand" they want to promote. Instead, they'll push their favorite online preachers, podcasts, etc. in the hope of getting other people to subscribe. When people get more excited about telling someone what they learned from the latest Dan Mohler sermon than they do about telling someone about Jesus ... that's concerning, and that's the effect of a churchianity mentality.


Combating CHURCH-ianity

I'm intentionally leaving this section incomplete because I want to keep it open for discussion, in case you all have ideas (and also because it's too late for me to keep writing). That said, here are a couple things that popped into my mind:

  1. Examine yourself first and discern if you have these susceptibilities. How can you identify your propensity toward a "churchianity" viewpoint? Ask if you get more excited by your personal relationship with Jesus or by hearing a charismatic preacher or attending a Sunday service (I know, the two can overlap, but use some common sense in this evaluation).

  2. Once you're sure you're not contributing to the problem, begin living a Christ-centered life that focuses on adopting the purposes he has given us. Those purposes are to build the whole of the Church, even if the good of the Church doesn't involve building up your preferred brand/denomination/congregation/etc.

  3. Instead of using "come to church with me" as your primary evangelistic tool, take personal responsibility for sharing the Gospel with those you care about. Don't pawn them off to your pastor on the assumption that he's the better person for that job.

  4. Start a Bible study within your congregation that focuses on actual in-depth study of Scripture with minimal use of commentaries or other people's interpretations. Learn to wrestle with the text yourself instead of letting someone else do that hard work for you - and then (only after you have done this), go to reliable sources to see if what you've discovered is totally off-base from what other people are seeing (and, if so, figure out why).

  5. Other thoughts?


CONCLUSION

Church culture has been taking a dangerous shift such that people have become more interested in growing their congregation than growing the Kingdom of God. This has led to numerous problems, such as competition among denominations and individual congregations, shallow marketing campaigns, consumeristic attitudes toward appeasing church-shoppers, and (more significantly) risks toward idolatry and mishandling of Scripture.

Examine your own heart to discern if your love for Christ is your primary source of passion, or if this is eclipsed by your infatuation with a particular branding of the faith. Get your heart properly oriented first. Start living for the purposes Christ gave you (John 17, Matthew 28:16 et seq., etc.). Bring others on board, beginning with training one another to study Scripture deeply (ask me for resources if you're struggling in this area).

Keep fighting the good fight, brothers.