Dr. David W. Manner is the Associate Executive Director for the Kansas-Nebraska Convention of Southern Baptists. He blogs at http://kncsb.org/blogs/dmanner . You can follow him on Twitter: @dwmanner.
In retail, a loss leader is the practice of offering goods or services discounted at or below cost in order to draw consumers in. The strategy is that drawing them in will hopefully lead them to buy additional items at a higher price.
Churches are formulating final plans for meaningful Easter worship services at the end of this week knowing they will potentially impact more attendees than on any other Sunday of the year. In an effort to entice more participation some of those congregations are planning gimmicks or hooks to get consumers in for one of the most meaningful days of the church year.
When those consumers realize that worship actually requires offering their bodies as a living sacrifice, what methods then will those same congregations need to employ to entice those consumers to count the cost (Rom 12:1)? How will those congregations help them express deep calling unto deep worship…when discounted loss leader worship is all that they are offering (Ps 42:7)? In this context, you get what you pay for actually means…whatever you reach people with is what you will reach them to.
King David responded to God’s command to build an altar to the Lord so that the plague on the people of Israel might be stopped (2 Sam 24:21). At no cost to David, Araunah offered his threshing floor, his oxen, and even the wood from the oxen yokes for the burnt offering. King David replied, “No, I insist on paying for it. I will not sacrifice to the Lord my God burnt offerings that cost me nothing” (2 Sam 24:24).
Terry York and David Bolin wrote, “We have forgotten that what worship costs is more important than how worship comforts us or how it serves our agendas. We should not lift up to God worship or any other offering that costs us nothing. If worship costs us nothing but is fashioned to comfort our needs and preferences, it may not be worship at all.”1
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1 Terry W. York and C. David Bolin, The Voice of Our Congregation: Seeking and Celebrating God’s Song for Us (Nashville: Abingdon, 2005), 112.
good post, and good advice to put away the gimmicks and hooks,
to pull out into the deep, and await the holy command of Our Lord
The Apostles were not worried about ‘numbers’ either.
They had already been taught ‘by example’ that the ‘numbers’ would come;
not through their own powers, but by the Hand of the Lord:
4 After He had finished speaking, He said to Simon,
“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”
5 Simon said in reply,
“Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,
but at your command I will lower the nets.”
6 When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing.”
(from St. Luke’s Gospel, Ch. 5)
It was AT HIS COMMAND, that they lowered the nets.
“He called the wise men by a star, the fishermen by their art of fishing. ”
(St John Chrysostom)
“In an effort to entice more participation some of those congregations are planning gimmicks or hooks to get consumers in…”
Bingo! A truly great line.
“We have forgotten that what worship costs is more important than how worship comforts us or how it serves our agendas.”
Great way to conclude the article. This was really good.
Wow! Short, yet powerful. Those verses from 2 Samuel are so rich with the depth of David’s heart and his love for God. Like him, I’m continually confronted with my own failures as a man. I would hope to have a heart like his that is ready to seize every opportunity to offer myself up in sacrifice. Good stuff.
David,
Such concentrated truth! Well said. I have been in a church that is all about preparing for this day. The leadership instructs the people to do what you have said, “intice”. That is what is done in grocery stores when we were told to “face” the isles and “set-up” the produce. All “appearances” are to be neat and polished. The appeal to the eye is not what we are about. Neither are we gloom and doom. This has been our problem for more than a generation. We are to be Spirit filled and that takes on a whole new aura in the church. That says more than anything we can “do” to attract.
Note God permits us to spend as extravagantly as our hearts call us to do in worship. As long as we are spending for the sole purpose of exalting Jesus. It’s important to remember the next time you see a church overspending on facilities…
Is the calling of our hearts a reliable measure of what we should do?
I don’t think Christians are to be focused on things material during worship.
You can’t serve two masters.
I agree. Though the point of regular giving is very precisely one of prioritization. As my dad preaches during his stewardship sermons: share with me your calendar and your checkbook and I’ll tell you who you worship…
Ask the woman who anointed him with fragrant oil?
Chris,
All callings are from the heart. One is of grace, the other is of the flesh. Our duty is to be able to distinguish the difference.
One might hope some things come from a mind shaped by Word and Spirit.
And the Holy Spirit uses the Word to speak to hearts, guide us, lead us and draw us into extravagant worship – as Greg said before this little excursion.
Thus I mentioned the Spirit working with Word to shape mind. As for the heart, let’s not forget Jeremiah 17:9. That is, after all, what God has said in his Word.
If a church uses gimmicks to catch them, them they will have to keep coming up with even more tricky gimmicks in order to keep them. Yet if you use Christ to catch them, they will never be lost.
Amen.
I think the church should draw on its liturgical heritage. Liturgy always puts the spotlight on God orienting all things to him.