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What Does Apple and the Church Have in Common?
I like to stay up on most things technical so today I was reading this article by Don Reisinger on CNET News entitled “Why Apple’s event next week won’t rock at all” He talks about next weeks Apple press conference and how it will most likely be dissapointing. He says:
“If this event will surround the iPod — and most think it will — how important will it really be? Let’s face it — an iPod event may have a few big announcements that will make some swoon, but by and large, it’s nothing more than another run-of-the-mill day at the Apple office.”"
I wonder if over the past several years with the announcement of the new line of ipods, the iphone, the ipod touch, and the mac book, if people have almost become addicted to the next big announcement. And now when apple may be unveiling something as simple as some updated ipods, if we may be suffering almost from withdrawl of our apple announcement and product “fix”
My other thought is how I see us do this same thing in church. We sometimes think that what will bring people to the church is the next big program, event, concert, speaker, workshop, church sponsored trip, worship band or pastor. All these are fine but if the end result is people who are addicted to the next thing the church can give them, won’t the at some point become dissapointed because we can’t provide that?
What are your thoughts?
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The church is absolutely way too program driven, jumping from event to event, rather than vision-driven, a sense of what God is calling us to and becoming a movement that people rally behind. The problem is we focus on “function” instead of “identity” in ministry. Our identity always comes first and what we do (function) should flow from that, NOT find our identity in what we do.
I agree with you, Russell. However, in a consumer-driven society, how can we compete with everything else that’s going on and keep young believers plugged in? I know we are putting the cart before the horse. It’s an age-old problem. Trying to make church appeal to people leads us down a slippery slope. Paul even talked about milk vs. solid food. We shouldn’t go to church for the entertainment value (milk) but rather for what we have to contribute (solid food).
However, I do feel we should be intentional about meeting the needs of people. And if God is meeting needs through a vision/program he’s given us, we shouldn’t downplay it as the equivalent of a new ipod announcement from Apple Corp.
To me, there’s a fine line between being culturally relevant and entertaining the masses. I suppose one solution is to seek to disciple the believers we have and as the Spirit touches their lives, if it is true growth, that change will impact the people around them and people will be brought to the church through relationships, not programs. I agree with Tim, though. We should be driven by vision, not programs.