“Evangelicals have done a superb job of evangelizing people, bringing them to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, but they are failing to provide believers with approaches to living that keep them going and growing in spiritual relationship with him.… Many start the life of faith with great enthusiasm, only to discover themselves in difficulty shortly afterward. Their high hopes and good intentions seem to fade away. The spirit may be willing, but the flesh proves weak.… People need support to keep them going when enthusiasm fades.”-Alister McGrath
A Primary Goal
Each week, our family of three (soon to be four) loads up the car and heads to Target for our weekly shopping experience. And experience it is. Often, my wife will head off with a shopping cart while my daughter and I will commence to roaming through the aisles examining the shelves for anything we “might need” or want. But mainly, we just roam.
There’s something homey about Target- something inherently comforting and personal that keeps us- and by us I mean my daughter and I- coming back week after week. I would venture to say its abnormal that father and two-year-old child come grocery shopping with mom on a consistent basis. But it’s a captivating place.
So what is it about the Target experience? Because, let’s face it, I’m not the only dad roaming the aisles while my wife shops. And there’s a reason that Target has succeeded in becoming one of the world’s top discount retailers. Branding expert Marc Gobe describes it as the human touch: “We are living in a time where we are losing control of our own lives—technologies move faster than we do—and globalization is a concept that is very hard to ‘completely embrace.’ People are seeking somehow to be reassured with anything that has some kind of human touch. Target delivers the human touch through communication, through their products, through the design of their stores and their people. You feel that personal touch and feel reassured in a world that’s not reassuring.”
Laura Rowley writes of her research on Target’s success in On Target: “Why do people gravitate to Target? When quality products are offered at a fair price, it implies honesty; someone respects the value of your hard-earned dollar. When a store is clean, well-organized, and gets you on your way quickly, it implies respect for your time. When the products are imaginative and stylish, it implies a belief that everyone, not just the wealthy, appreciates and deserves beauty. Giving away $100 million a year implies that someone shares your concerns about the community. The external experience is about shopping; the internal, emotional experience is about being validated, and treated with respect.”
What the Church Is Missing
In the church, the external experience is about worship, teaching, and connection. However, internally, the emotional experience is about being validated and treated with respect- it’s all about grace. If grace were water, then the church should be an ocean. There’s not a single created soul that doesn’t long to be drowning in a sea of grace.
In his book Guilt and Grace, the Swiss doctor Paul Tournier, a man of deep personal faith, admits, “I cannot study this very serious problem of guilt with you without raising the very obvious and tragic fact that religion- my own as well as that of all believers- can crush instead of liberate.” Tournier tells of patients who come to him: a man harboring guilt over an old sin, a woman who cannot put out of her mind an abortion that took place ten years before. “What the patients truly seek,” says Tournier, “is grace. Yet in some churches they encounter shame, the threat of punishment, and a sense of judgment. In short, when they look in the church for grace, they often find ungrace.”
An Atmosphere of Ungrace
I pick on Christians only because I am one, and see no real reason to pretend we are better than we are. I fight the grip of ungrace in my own life. It’s not that we don’t want to be grace-filled; it’s simply that we have made grace secondary. We’re like a blood hungry CEO who is chasing after our own self-worth and accomplishments, therefore willing to sacrifice all good things for that which will bring us success. One of the biggest ways that the church communicates grace being secondary is through its lack of unity. Ironically, the very place where everyone should get along, they just don’t. Perhaps we gain more sense of community at a place like Target than we do in our own churches. It’s scary.
Philip Yancey writes in What’s So Amazing About Grace: “We live in an atmosphere choked with the fumes of ungrace. Grace comes from outside, as a gift and not as an achievement. How easily it vanishes from our dog-eat-dog, survival-of-the-fittest, look-out-for-number-one world.”
How do I know that we have made grace secondary? Because the rise of guilt simultaneously shows the need for grace. And where the need for grace is on the rise, ungrace is rampant. Lewis Smedes explains guilt beatitfully in his book, Shame and Grace: “Guilt was not my problem as I felt it. What I felt most was a glob of unworthiness that I could not tie down to any concrete sins I was guilty of. What I needed more than pardon was a sense that God accepted me, owned me, held me, affirmed me, and would never let go of me even if He was not too much impressed with what He had on His hands.”
We need churches where grace stands primary; churches where all things- all programs, all ministries, all staff, all congregation, all plans and desires- fall secondary to the purpose of being an ocean of grace for people who need it.
When Grace Becomes Secondary
I wonder what would happen if Target decided to cut a few corners for the sake of making a few extra dollars? What if Target decided to hire the less than desirable designers in order to cheapen overhead and pocket the net? What if Target cut their store size in half narrowing aisles and packing the floor in an effort to save a few dollars. What if Target lines became longer simply because they desired to have fewer employees so that they could save a few dollars. What if Target sacrificed the value of the customers experience and instead of offering a place where customers feel welcome, wanted, respected, and appreciated sought to simply become the next place that sells the goods at the cheapest price? What if Target’s values became secondary to success?
The church of Jesus Christ exists to manifest the glory of God through the grace of Jesus Christ. That’s primary, not secondary. The successful church will only be deemed successful in as far as its relentless pursuit to that end.
What happens when the church sacrifices grace making it secondary in its purposes and plans? People flee. When people who are searching for grace sadly find only ungrace, they will continue searching for that which their heart desires- elsewhere. Could it be that our churches are shrinking simply because we have made secondary our primary purpose on this earth- to manifest the glory of God through grace of His Son Jesus Christ? The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of grace. Grace is the gospel; the gospel is grace. But along those same lines, God is the gospel. And if God is the gospel, and the gospel is grace, then when we become a church that saturates people with grace, then we become a church that saturates people with God.
Unashamed 