I have met many pastors who work diligently to prevent their congregations from working with other community churches.  The only way cooperation can occur is after negotiations with these churches to build relations and after certain bureaucratic rules of operation are established.   Consider how ridiculous this is.  We are supposed to be family.  We are brethren.  Why can’t the body of Christ function as it once did (first century Christianity), as it was designed to, as a whole, spontaneously as the Spirit directs?  Why must area churches treat each other as foreign governments when they are brethren?  Why must there exist invisible walls like the iron curtains dividing the body of Christ in each community?  Why can’t local churches marshal their forces and draw strength from one another?  The answer is simple: in today’s modern church, the rule of the Holy Spirit has been replaced by capitalism, and merchants and entrepreneurs have replaced true pastors.  Cooperation between local churches is prevented because they consider each other the enemy.

What would happen if churches cooperated together in their specialized gifts, as Christ intended, so that all of the local churches operate together as the body of Christ for that community?  What would happen if church leaders worked for the glory of Christ instead of their own glory, leveraging the gifts that they possess along with those from other area churches as they have need?  It would break the capitalistic mind-set that holds captive our current Christian culture.  It would allow local churches to focus on the real enemy, Satan, rather than on one another.

Most local churches will not accept the idea that they may need one another, nor will they accept that it is God’s design.  But, in reality, the only way a city will experience true revival is if its churches become vulnerable to one another and reach out to work together.

Branding: The Need For Image And Differentiation

It’s called “branding.”  Capitalism creates a need for “image” and “differentiation.”   We see this in marketing and advertising.  We also see it in the church.  What sets your church group apart?  What makes it special?  Why would people want to come to your church group over another?

Let’s remember that each local church believes that they alone have the whole truth, and the other local churches are wrong to some degree.  This causes each local pastor to believe that he and his church are special, that God would rather have the people of the community in his church rather than any other.  But if this is true, then why don’t we see it happening?  Why don’t we see God drawing His people into a single church, the one that is right?  But we don’t see this happening, do we? Instead, we see each local pastor become frustrated with his turnout.  He takes matters into his own hands, demonizing other churches and embarking on a marketing campaign designed to steal people from other churches.

Is it possible that most of God’s people, at least the ones who love Him, are exactly where God wants them?  God’s people are not the commodities of any individual local church. They are His tools meant to benefit all area churches and the community as a whole.  God’s people, like God’s Spirit, are meant to be shared to benefit the body of Christ at large.

Today’s pastors will reject this idea because it strikes at the core of their own relevance.  Instead, they try to distinguish themselves from other area churches in order to demonstrate that they are incompatible with one another.  They go to great lengths to show how every insignificant difference in belief is the difference between salvation and damnation.  Whereas the purpose of the Church used to be to shine the light of Jesus to the world, its purpose now is to promote self.

Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis

People may recognize this as the work of the German philosopher Hegel.  He is known for his ideas on the characteristic of reality called “dialectics.”  Dialectics shows that throughout history the conflict of opposites (thesis and antithesis) combine together to form a synthesis.  Truth contained in the thesis and antithesis is set aside for a higher truth that comes about from the synthesis.

An example of this can be seen in almost any contemporary church youth group.  Many church families try to raise their children with the moral and cultural values with which they were raised: this is a thesis.  However, they then put their children into public schools which expose them to an opposite set of values: the antithesis.  The result is children whose conversation and appearance is a combination of the two sets of values.  Children who are raised by parents with conservative values but are also constantly exposed to worldly values end up synthesizing the two together.  They typically end up displaying a godly pretense with a worldly appearance.  We find many church youth groups with children who have little dissimilarity with unsaved children.  Tight jeans, see-through and skin tight tops, gothic make-up, tattoos, facial metal studs, black fingernail polish, foul language, sexual promiscuity, etc.

John 17:16 KJV

They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.

John 15:19 KJV

If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.

Whether or not a dress code can make us good or bad is not the issue.  The issue is that we face a cultural antithesis that seeks to morph us into a synthesis of worldly and godly morals, values, principles, and ethics.  When Jesus said that we are not of the world, He was not talking about a moral code but a cultural perspective of life. 

Another example can be seen in the progressive nature of Christian music.  Christian music tends to lag slightly behind the contemporary music of each age.  In reality, most Christian music is a synthesis of traditional values (the thesis) and contemporary music of the age (the antithesis). 

Summary

Does this mean that all contemporary culture is wrong and should be avoided?  No.  Look at the art of Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci.  Consider the literature of Shakespeare.  And listen to the symphonies of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach.  Christianity is also opportunistic.  Though the ages Christianity has demonstrated flexibility to use contemporary culture to enhance worship and faith.  In fact, many traditional hymns used the music of bar room songs.

But the opposite is also true.  Christianity has embraced some aspects of contemporary culture when it shouldn’t have.  Greek philosophy and rhetoric change the operation of church assemblies to where spiritual gifts were no longer necessary and helped to exalt an elite class which became “clergy.”  The culture of emperor worship helped to establish a pope.  In the same way, wrongful use of capitalist tenets in the church is destroying the church from the inside out. 

Our capitalistic culture embraces prosperity through competition and entrepreneurial endeavors.   Like the Christians of centuries ago, we have embraced our culture and exploited it in today’s Church.  As a result, our local churches no longer cooperate together but demonize one another (much like you see in business competition) and steal from one another, all in the name of Christ.  This behavior has become so eagerly accepted that it is now considered godly.  In fact, pastors who can steal the most are seen as the most spiritual.  Many pastors are no longer shepherds but entrepreneurs and businessmen trying to stay ahead of their only competition: other local churches.

It requires faith to trust God, to let down the barriers built up against other area churches.  It takes faith to reach out as brothers and embrace Christians who are different, but is that not what God wants?  How might other churches benefit from us?  How might we benefit from them?  Might we all become better off?  Might God be glorified?

How is it that we know as individual Christians that self-interest is wrong, that we should be servants to other Christians, but we refuse to accept that the same spiritual principles apply to the Church?  Pastors feel at liberty to use self-interest and manipulation to keep members and steal from other churches.  These pastors use proven business tactics to demonstrate that their product is better.  Pastors, in short, do not practice what they preach.

How is it that individual Christians can enjoy fellowship together in casual settings like the laundromat, but if they move their meeting into a church setting, they most likely will transform into bitter rivals?  What separates Christians isn’t Christ or their common faith, but men of God whom they respect: their pastors, the businessmen of their churches.

Conclusion

Now for the scary part.  We see that the purity of first century Christian values (thesis) merged with the cultures of the day (antithesis) and produced a monster (the synthesis).  But we can see this behavior with Christianity occurring throughout history.  The Jew would point to Nazism as being the result of the merging of socialism with Christianity (in that Hitler claimed to be one).  In fact, each time Christianity merged with contemporary cultures, monsters were born.  With that in mind, could it be that the beast of Revelation is nothing more than the fusion of the modern church with the contemporary culture of this age?   In the end, what satanic beast will it create?

Addendum

The following response was to a pastor who responded to say he was having at least limited success in bring pastors together, and that he did not fully agree with my point on branding.  He believes that there is a need for a vision and at least limited branding.  He made several "excellent" points, but I will not post his reply without his permission.  I'm including this response in that I believe it may address concerns you may have after reading the note.  The following was my response:

Thank you brother

It is so encouraging to get responses from men who proclaim, “but it’s not all bad!”  And I do agree.  My notes cover a vast collection of subjects and no one of them is meant to represent the entire subject of the church, but just that part to which it is directed.  I'm sure you understand this.  And I do realize that this note sounds very pessimistic.  But it's difficult to describe the artificial structure that man has constructed that imitates the church without sounding so. 

Your encouragement about the headway you have made in your community and with the local leaders is so encouraging.  Please keep up the effort.  I agree, hearing things like, “God directed me not to have a part of an effort to bring His people together” is ridiculous.  And for the big churches not to attend makes sense because they have the most to “loose.”  It’s all so silly.

I do understand your point about branding and having a vision.  My goal is to demonstrate how that many things we do are actually triggered out of the saturation of worldly cultures in our lives – more to come on this.  Is there a need for branding in our current culture?  Perhaps.  Would you allow me to explain where I’m going with this?  If not quit reading now.

When there existed a single church in a community – as was once often the case – there existed no need for differentiation.  Would you agree?  When there were two there still was no “real” need for branding since the community usually split along geographical lines.  Now zip ahead a few hundred years.

What about when there comes a time when there are 10 or 20 churches (and as you say, para-churches) in a community?  And couple that with the ability to travel (in a very short span of time) to other communities with dozens of more churches.  This changes things doesn’t it?  Now branding takes on whole new meaning.  So I understand.  We begin to see how that we cannot escape culture.  We’re swimming in a stew of religious ideology, economic pressures, and cultural influences (humanist, secularism, post-modernism, socialism, capitalism, and so on and so on).  Is there another solution other than to be swallowed up by it – this is truly a struggle for every pastor.

My note did not provide a framework for what to do.  It merely pointed to the fact that culture does influence our actions and for the need for churches to work together rather than against each other.   As a facilitator of this objective (which you obviously are) it is especially relevant to you.  So, rather then a formula let’s consider how it ought to look.

First, what would happen if pastors would take the lead?   They lay down the capitalistic culture that worries about numbers and attendance.   Okay, if that will never happen then don’t read any further.  But what would happen if God would intervene?  There are many countries where having a non-government certified church is illegal.  Where this happens churches find a whole new meaning to the word “brethren.”  So perhaps nothing will change in our culture unless/until God intervenes.   What would happen to these large churches if (through economic challenges) the government simply revoked tax-exempt status?  Now that also changes things.  You see, there exists no framework for change because none of us know what the future holds.  All we can do it to prepare ourselves, and the congregation of believers that we are among.  We can do things right even if no one else does.

I personally do not believe that God recognizes denominational barriers that separate us.  He sees us holistically, as a single body.  I know how He must feel when I watch my children argue, or fight over a toy.  I sit there and wonder, “don’t they realize that they are brothers?”  After all, nothing really belongs to them.  Everything belongs to me.  For all that they have, and all that they are has been purchased and provided by me. 

They say that to change a culture takes at least two generations.  Okay, so we cannot change the church culture that surrounds us.  But we can change our children and the people that we have fellowship with.  Perhaps the next generation can learn from our mistakes and teaching and affect a new culture.  One whose success is not measured by numbers but by the hearts that have been change.  A culture where ever church recognizes that we are all brothers.  A culture where we understand that “all that they have, and all that they are has been purchased and provided by” our Savior.  And that nothing in fact belongs exclusively to us.  What would happen if in that culture pastor practiced self-denial and worked to make each other successful?  Wow, practicing what they preach?  Now there’s a thought.

Are you still there?  So you’ve kept reading.  I’m not saying that we can change today, or even that we will see change in our lifetime.  You talked about vision.  How about this?  What if our vision did not look at tomorrow but instead the future our children will live in?  We can instill in them the tools to create a new future that is different from ours.  A future where churches come to understand the true meaning of the word “brother.”

I realize that what I’ve written here is academic.  This is no new revelation.   Sometimes it helps just to hear the words again, doesn’t it?

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