the American Church
Just read a lecture about the American characteristics of the local Church and how they appear in the Church of the Nazarene.
Here are a few of my thoughts:
Out of the lecture, two of the strongest points about American religion that I see present in the COTN is 1) the religious marketplace and 2) the democratic impulse
These have certainly been important, or at least present, in the foundations of our “american church system”. Where I live, maybe like or unlike where you live, there are churches EVERYWHERE.
I’m not joking and you know it. There are churches next to churches. There are entire streets of churches where I live. One must ask the question, “Why do we need so many?
” One answer would be that each church teaches different. The lecture spoke to this. I drive down the street and see ten churches; well partly that’s because there’s a church of the Nazarene, a Catholic church, a Vineyard church, a Baptist church, a Presbyterian church- it’s a literal marketplace of worship centers. On Sunday morning, thousands of people flock to these places to “worship God”, but still are separated due to the fact that they need to worship in place where they “belong”, or where “they agree with the teaching”, or where the music is not too loud or too quite. Just as it said in the lecture, America has created a marketplace. And this is does not exclude the COTN. In Nampa, Idaho, where there are a thousand undergraduate nazarene students, they all know where to go if they want a loud worship service, they all know where to go if they want hymns. More so, the COTN, like many other churches in the area have begun to market themselves. Students know that COTN might have a good college group, but another COTN sends a bus with doughnuts to pick up students - where do you think the students end up going?
This is why some churches even have a marketplace within their marketplace. Yes, random church A might have a 9:00 traditional service, but if they add a “contemporary” service at 10:00, maybe more people will choose to come there.
This is not to say that’s its wrong for churches to provide food, or different services; it’s just showing that there is a willingness on the congregation’s part to see “what the church can offer them”. That offer may be orthodoxy, or vibrant worship, maybe it’s doughnuts and good parking, either way, if the offer isn’t good enough, the congregation will simply go elsewhere - it’s a marketplace.
This leads me to my next point, the “democratic impulse”. I’d lean towards saying that most of the problems we encounter in the real of “church marketplaces” stems from our democratic impulse. That’s why the local church down the street decides to open it’s doors; because they believe they can “do it better”. I know that sounds rough, but isn’t it true? If not for a democratic impulse, wouldn’t we all just join the “one” local church in the city.
The democratic impulse isn’t all bad though, it’s even encouraging at times. It’s a strange hybrid of something Martin Luther may have liked: let the people have a hand in their church, let the people play a part. However, just like the religious marketplace we’ve created, this too is a double-edged sword. I believe our Church has grown over hundreds of years because certain people have stood up and said “I want to play a role in this process. I have some ideas and I want to push us into some new areas of growth”.
However, the dangerous side is the marketplace we’ve created. It’s the notion that if you don’t like it, then you just change it. Will we soon arrive at a church that has suffered so many changes that it is no longer a Church?
The democratic impulse also must play a role in both helping the Church grow as well as hindering.
For comparison, lets relate the president of the United States and Congress, with the pastor of a local church and it’s church board. Both parties are supposed to work together for progressive leadership of their people. Sometimes the checks and balances keep the President or the pastor from gaining to much power, from being the sole authority, however in many ways the endless control found in Congress or in a church board may at times limit the other party from actually doing any good. And so a local pastor feels stress because the board doesn’t agree with how the worship or the sermons are going. And so they hire a new person. And the other pastor heads off to create a new church. It’s a vicious-circle of a marketplace. And the COTN is not excluded from all of this.
