Do Not Convert Register

In ‘Voting for Jesus: Christianity and Politics in Australia’, Quarterly Essay, Amanda Lohrey discusses Brian Houston, leader of Hillsong and Assemblies of God in Australia:

Houston, by contrast, resembles a motivational speaker, the very picture of dynamic movement, and indeed on the DVD I’m watching, he seems to suggest that salvation is all about moving forward. There is insistent repetition of the words ‘growth’, ‘increase’, change, momentum, all words used by business, and in its own way, this is a kind of corporate religious speak, punctuated by its own commercials for the sale of the CD of the speech currently being delivered, and concluding with the injunction of the good CEO to his shareholders: “Remember the best is yet to come.”


Although she is speaking specifically about Brian Houston here, it could be a description of any number of Christian preachers around the world. Sermons often sound more like motivational talks that anything else, where the focus is on how God can make your life better, rather than what you can do for him. There is frequent reference to DVDs, CDs and other products, often mentioned along with the words, ‘I really pray you get this because it will bless you.’ And anything touching on evangelism (which quite a lot of it does) comes across like a sales speech.

Part of the reason for this may lie in the fact that the types of churches that tend to do this are pretty young, comparatively speaking, and have perhaps been influenced more by the surrounding culture than other traditional churches. We live in a consumer world, filled with advertisements, marketing and a whole heap of products and services on offer. In such a competitive market, companies need to convince us that their product or service is worthwhile. And billions of dollars is spent on marketing and advertising campaigns in order to do this.

And so our world is filled with a lot of messages telling us that this product or service will improve our life in some way, or that we’ll be missing out if we don’t get it. And because there are so many messages out there, companies need to do something to get our attention. Advertisements no longer simply tell us what’s on offer and why we should get it. They need to entertain us, shock us, humour us, yell at us.

And so it seems that many Christian churches have simply entered this world. Christianity is no longer just about serving Christ. Today’s consumer wants to know what’s in it for me. How is this going to improve my life? And so we fill sermons with messages about how God answers prayers, gives you money and moves you forward onto better things. And because we live in an entertainment and advertisement saturated world, the message needs to be big. It needs to get our attention. And when Christians want to convert someone to Christianity, they deliver the sales pitch.

But one of the problems with the consumer world we live in is that we have heard so many sales talks that we have grown cynical. I don’t know about you, but every time I would answer the phone to hear ‘We are going to give you a new phone’, I would feel like hanging up. I’ve heard it before. I know they’re just trying to sell me something. And at one stage, I was getting about five of these phone calls a day. I didn’t mind the odd sales call. But it was just too much. So I put myself on the ‘Do Not Call Register’. As it happened, I still get a few sales call a week, from charities trying to sell me raffle tickets. Apparently charities are exempt from complying with the register. And it doesn’t matter how good their charity is or how worthwhile the prize in their raffle is, when I get those phone calls I just want to hang up.

And I wonder whether we’re really doing Christianity a huge disserve by turning it into a sales talk. When Christians emphasise the benefits and the blessings that will come our way, they do tend to sound like a holy advertisement. And people of today have heard a lot of advertisements. Many of them have grown cynical. The minute someone starts trying to sell them something, they turn off. They have heard it before. Not interested, thank you.

Has anyone ever noticed that the look you sometimes get when you say you are a Christian is the exact same look that people give when they open the door to a stranger? It’s that look of ‘Whatever you’re trying to sell, I don’t want it.’ Instead of placing themselves on the ‘Do Not Call Register’, they’ve placed themselves on the ‘Do Not Convert Register’.

Christianity is not just another product, among all the other products, that needs a great marketing campaign, a catchy jingle and a good sales talk. Christianity is so much more than that. But I am afraid that many people will start to think of it as ‘just another product’ if that’s the way we continue to ‘sell it’. Christianity doesn’t need to be sold. It’s not a gimmick to keep you out of hell. The bible is not a motivational book that will show you had to lead a good life in 10 easy commandments. And signing up for Christianity does not come with a 100-day, prayers-answered or money-back-guarantee.

Christianity is about recognising the God who made us and the Christ who saved us. We don’t follow him because we’re going to get something out of it. We follow because God is worthy of our worship and our service.

Instead of a Show - Jon Foreman

One of my favourite songs at the moment is Jon Foreman’s Instead of a Show. When I first heard it, I listened to it at least 10 times, over and over and over. And I hadn’t done that since I was a teenager listening to a new Bon Jovi album. Then I played it to my kids. Then I played it to my friends. And now I’m going to play it for you. Well, I’m going to include the video here and say please, please listen to it. It really is a brilliant song.



It sounds a bit like harsh when you first listen, especially at the beginning. You could be forgiven for thinking this is sung by a person who really doesn’t like churches – or at the very least some kinds of churches. But the song is actually based on a passage in Isaiah. I’ve included the passage at the bottom of this article.

The song and the bible passage are both a reminder that all our outward expressions of religion don’t mean a thing to God, if we’re not doing what he wants us to do. And I know that Christianity is about grace, not works. Yes, none of deserve God’s forgiveness. And the only way we can be accepted by God is by His grace, not on anything we may do. However, that doesn’t mean that what he wants us to do is not important. It matters more to him than our sacrifices and our worship. There’s no point in raising our hands to God in worship, if we’re going to keep them clenched up and out of sight when someone wants a helping hand.

We feel spiritual because we look spiritual. But God wants more from us than to simply look spiritual. He wants more than a show.

Dare I say it, but a lot of churches put a heap of effort into producing a good show. They have the large worship teams with trained musicians and easy to sing along songs. They have the dancing and the swaying and the screaming and the praying. They have people speaking in tongues and being slain in the spirit. They have large auditoriums with an abundance of lights, screens and speakers. They have merchandise stalls set up, where you can buy books and CDs and DVDs that are going to bless you. Going to these churches can be more like attending a rock concert than a church.

But it’s just a show. And it’s not the show that counts.

Here is Isaiah 1:11-18.

11 "The multitude of your sacrifices—
what are they to me?" says the LORD.
"I have more than enough of burnt offerings,
of rams and the fat of fattened animals;
I have no pleasure
in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.

12 When you come to appear before me,
who has asked this of you,
this trampling of my courts?

13 Stop bringing meaningless offerings!
Your incense is detestable to me.
New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—
I cannot bear your evil assemblies.

14 Your New Moon festivals and your appointed feasts
my soul hates.
They have become a burden to me;
I am weary of bearing them.

15 When you spread out your hands in prayer,
I will hide my eyes from you;
even if you offer many prayers,
I will not listen.
Your hands are full of blood;

16 wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds
out of my sight!
Stop doing wrong,
17 learn to do right!
Seek justice,
encourage the oppressed.
Defend the cause of the fatherless,
plead the case of the widow.

18 "Come now, let us reason together,"
says the LORD.
"Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.

(from Bible Gateway)

You don't need to complain just because you can

Recently I caught myself have a good old whine about someone. They had done the wrong thing. Which meant I had to do something I shouldn’t have to do. And basically, I was being treated very unfairly.

First of all, I complained to the person involved. Then when they wouldn’t listen to me anymore, I carried on complaining to myself. I even thought about ringing my friend just so I could have someone else to complain to. And I was quite sure that she would agree with me and commiserate with me on my unjust treatment.

The only thing that stopped me was a little sentence that came into my head. You don’t need to complain just because you can.

A lot of the time, people seem to live under the assumption that just because they’ve got a good reason to complain, they should complain. It’s almost seen as an obligation. And it’s very hard to let go of that. If we don’t complain, we feel like we’re saying that what they did was okay.

Now there’s perhaps some truth in that, when it comes to complaining to the person involved. If somebody is getting hurt, we should speak up. And there’s certainly nothing in the bible to say that we should let people walk all over us. But sometimes we spend a lot of time complaining about things where nobody actually is getting hurt. Just because something is unfair doesn’t mean that anybody is being harmed or seriously disadvantaged because of it.

Sometimes we need to complain to the person, but stop the complaining inside our head. Complaining about someone either to ourselves or to others doesn’t hurt the person involved. It doesn’t even change things. If somebody continues to do the wrong thing, even after you’ve said something, they’re not going to change their mind just because you spend a whole lot of time thinking about what they did wrong. Then there are the times when people do a lot of complaining about someone, but say nothing to the person they’re annoyed with.

But even when we should complain to someone, and there are very good reasons for speaking up, we also need to learn when to stop complaining. Some people will continue to do the wrong thing, no matter how many reasons are put forward for why they are acting inappropriately. To constantly battle such people is just a drain. There are times when we need to accept that someone has done or is doing the wrong thing and nothing can be done about it.

But it’s often in those times that it is hardest to stop complaining. When somebody won’t change what they are doing, all we have left is complaining. That and praying. And prayers in these cases can often be just complaining to God. We feel like we need to complain. It’s all we have left.

Yet it’s also in these times that complaining can do the most harm. We just get more and more frustrated with something that can’t be changed. We feel the need to go over it constantly in our heads, preventing us from achieving any real peace. It can even spill out into other relationships. And if our friends should tell us not to complain so much, we will ask them whether they think that was has happened was right, with the underlying assumption that if it was wrong, they should listen to us complain as much as we like.

But whether what happened was right or not shouldn’t be the issue. When somebody does the wrong thing, we aren’t obligated to complain about. We can simply accept it and move on. To accept something is not to say that it’s okay. It’s instead to say I’ve done all I can do about this situation and it’s time to let it go.

And really, we’d be a lot happier if we let a lot more opportunities to complain just pass us by. Deciding not to complain is not letting the culprit off the hook. It’s letting ourselves off the hook. It’s refusing to let that person’s actions hurt us anymore than they already have.

(Image details - A gargoyle of a nagging wife - from Grendon, Northamptonshire church. Picture by R Neil Marshman (c). This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0. Image taken from Wikipedia Commons.)