I was recently reading an article in Leadership Journal on the innovations that are supposedly driving the church.
1) Customization
2) Participaton
3) Incarnational Community
4) Relationships
Now. The last three make complete sense to me. But “customization.” That seems like a problem to me. I understand their point in that we can provide a variety of experiences to help meet the needs of a wide array of people. We do that here in our ministry. But the word customization scares me. It sort of rings of catering to a person, which I think is quite dangerous when we are talking about Christianity. As Eugene Peterson might say, we are “taking the guts out of the gospel” when we try to be relevant in this way.
Customization smacks of fast food, do it your way. As little interference and roadblocks as possible, and please make it quick. It seems to be that of the suburban church mentality that can be so consumer driven, and when needs are no longer met….when customer service has dropped off, and the customization no longer fits..move on.
So I agree with part of this article. And the other. Well?
What do you think?
