Thesis 13 | Church: Too Big, Too Expensive, Too Empty, Too Useless

Thesis 13: Too Big, Too Expensive, Too Empty, Too Useless

I’ll be saying this a lot, but if you haven’t already dug into what the early church looked like in terms of its facilities, activities, and aims, you really should. Then contrast that to what Church looks like now, as it has been transformed by humans since about the 3rd-century CE. It’s worth a deep read and dive, and really worth knowing.

In general, though, it was smaller, in private spaces and homes, and dynamic. This was an intentional shift from Judaism’s temples and synagogues, and allowed believers to pursue the great mandate by ensuring churches could move and go where the people needed them to.

In terms of facilities, the only thing early faithful needed was a place to regularly gather, worship, encourage each other, and eat. Then they were off to live Christlike lives.

Definition of a Christlike life: love God, love and help your neighbour, and share why that is awesome. God/JC/HS takes care of the rest.

Contrast that to most of today’s churches: big, static, expensive, and mostly-empty buildings.

In his podcast Revisionist History, historian Malcolm Gladwell dedicates an episode to critiquing the mind-blowingly wasteful nature of golf courses, especially in the light of the housing crisis, ecological sustainability, responsible use of public land, and urban sprawl. We should apply the same brush to our churches.

Churches are a waste of space and resources that should be dedicated elsewhere. How is it stewardly to pay for, maintain, and expand buildings that sit largely empty for six and a half days a week, and do nothing to serve our needy and vulnerable neighbours? It isn’t. We’re basically privileged, hoarding squatters. We even lock the fucking doors to keep undesirable people out. (You know, like Jesus told us to.)

They’re incredibly expensive, too. This was the beauty of privately-owned locations for early churches: they required no revenue or money beyond what individuals already contributed. Today’s churches require unbelievable revenue streams just to stay open. Imagine if the millions it takes to build and maintain each typical church were used to reach our vulnerable and needy brothers and sisters? Multiplied by the hundreds of thousands of these empty shells worldwide?

Every penny available to Church folks should be used to serve, not to pad salaries and put on concerts only for Christians (no, P&W services don’t attract people to the faith). Christians should never go into debt to start a church, full stop. It’s blasphemy to fundraise for pews and walls and audio-visual worship distractions.

Finally, contemporary churches are static, and worse still, can’t be torn down when they outlive their usefulness. Populations will always move, but you can’t carry a cathedral across town to the homeless encampment or refugee tent city. The tens of thousands of empty and decaying churches worldwide are depressing, but more importantly, they’re absolutely fucking useless to God. And know this: every church will close eventually. Every. Last. One.

Oh, sure, a few of them might get bought by new congregations and even fewer still might be given over to be homeless shelters or food banks, but not many. The rest just sit there, stone reminders that Church isn’t Church anymore, and that Christians have forgotten what their saviour started and early church folk built.

And most importantly, forgetting the entire reason we believe what we believe. Good news. Love and service. Sharing the goodness. You can’t leave everything behind to follow Christ if you’re mortgaged to your church-building eyeballs. You can’t share if no one knows you exist. You can’t be relevant if you can’t keep your church working.

You can’t follow Christ if you can’t move.

Keywords: Too Big, Too Expensive, Too Empty, Too Useless; Faith; Deconstruction; Religion; Christian; Christianity; Church; Sin; Corruption; Scandal; Bible; Abuse; God; Jesus; Stewardship