This last year for Christmas my father and his wife (GranDan and Annie) bought my girls a bean bag to go downstairs in our game room. When they arrived at Christmas and saw the bean bag, they were frustrated that it wasn't big enough to seat both of their grandbabies, so they promptly hopped on line and bought another one.
When the bean bag arrived, my youngest daughter was there to help us pull it out of the box. "I'm going to play in this box GranDan!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. Never mind the expensive and glorious contents of the box, she was so enamoured with the packaging that all she could think about what drawing on, cutting up and taping shut the various openings that the box had to offer. We actually spent the better part of one Friday putting the two bean bag boxes together, cutting a passageway between the two and stringing up Christmas lights to illuminate the inside. It was a mansion that would have made any hobo proud. I placed a picture of one of our early prototypes below (when there was just ONE box and a Moser light on the roof)
And my girls played and played and played and played in these boxes. In fact, they are still taped together with Christmas lights aglow in my basement right now!
Meanwhile... the true gift. The real treasures sit underutilized and unused in the next room. Upstaged by the packaging in which they came.
I can't help but think that the Church is kind of like that as well.
At my first full-time ministry gig we engaged in a sort of "worship war" over the style of music that should be played in the worship services. As you can imagine (and have probably lived out in your own church) there were many different opinions as to which style of music was the most appropriate. I can recall sitting down with one of my Sr. Adult Sunday School classes as they emotionally lobbied for the old hymns to make a comeback. I asked the class, what is it that you like about those songs? Why is it that this style appeals to you. The response back was nearly unanimous-- we love the deep theology of the hymns. They actually meant something! Hearing this was a breath of fresh air! If we could just use some of thee lyrics then, in a re-packaged, more modern format then certainly that could appease everyone. And so we took some older hymns and re-couched them with more modern chord-progressions, and performed them with a full band.
And they still weren't pleased.
Why? They had told me that it was all about the lyrics... it was all about the theology. But unfortunately, it never is. It's all about the packaging.
And just like a kindergartner playing with the box that once housed the expensive toy, the packaging had drawn our attention away from the real gift... and the real message.
Nearly 10 years later, I'm afraid that not much has changed. In many churches there is a large preoccupation with the packaging, rather than the gift of the gospel. In our consumer based society we shop churches like we do car insurance looking for one that has the right programs, the right music, the right pastor, the right dress-code, and the nicest, newest building. Looking for the box with the best looking logo, rather than the one containing the best quality message.
As parents, we look at our children ducking in and out of an imaginary fort made out of boxes and we smile. Certainly there is no harm in the packaging... but there is also an emotion running through us all that makes us shake our head in shame. The object of value-- The object that should demand our attention lays unnoticed amid torn wrapping paper and garbage bags filled with bows... they are just too preoccupied to notice.
I wonder if God ever feels that way when we bicker over the packaging? We argue and fight about carpets and lighting and smoke and video feeds... meanwhile the gospel sits unnoticed in the corner of our sanctuaries.... we are just too preoccupied to notice.
--Jeremy
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