Is your church a corporation or community?

There's a story in the Gospels that tells of a time when Jesus went into a temple and threw out all the merchants doing business there. We've all heard it. The lesson we learn from this incident is that the house of God is not a place to sell things. It's not that hard; just keep your money to yourself when you're at church (except when your pastor tells you about the fellowship hall renovation project and the gold plates start getting passed around).

I'm not sure this passage justifies our silent judgments about the lady who not-so-subtly promotes her Scentsy products during Sunday School, and I definitely don't think it should stop us from buying Girl Scout cookies from her daughter after the service. I think what Jesus does at the temple in Matthew 21 demonstrates his frustrations with a church that has become corporate* and impersonal, so obsessed with marketing to the right audiences, luring people in with new campaigns, and trying to sell a mass-produced, bottled-up "God" that it forgets about the people who are there to pray.

When we ask, "What do millennials [or insert any group of people here] need from the church?" we're asking a marketing question. When we ask, "How can we reach these people or those people?" we're asking a marketing question. These questions belong to businesses, not to churches. When we ask those questions, we're really saying, "How can we alter God--create a certain image of God--to appeal to X, Y, or Z?"

That story in the Bible isn't telling us that Jesus doesn't want us to sell things in the church; it's telling us that Jesus doesn't want us to sell God in the church.

And so, in case you're worried you might be attending a business every Sunday morning instead of a church, I've put together two lists: 1) Characteristics of a corporation 2) Characteristics of a community (the original church Jesus modeled to us with his disciples)

Corporations sell things. Communities share things.

Corporations promote hierarchy. Communities promote equality.

Corporations downsize their people to grow business. Communities grow their people to downsize ignorance.

Corporations are machines. Communities are beings.

Corporations outsource. Communities insource.

Corporations see economic value. Communities see inherent value.

Corporations are about networking. Communities are about developing relationships.

Is your church a corporation or community? Is it a house of prayer or a den of robbers?

...

[Acts 2:44 All the believers were together and had everything in common.]

*On a related note, can we please, please, please get rid of the term "corporate worship"?