2 August 2001 Editorial:
Sheep-Shearers R Us

When the suggestive sale comes to Christianity

Larry Kirkpatrick

A recent trip to my local post office revealed that the suggestive sale has come to the USPS. You know the suggestive sale I take it; when you make a purchase at a Fast Food joint and at the cash register, before they finally ring up your total sale they ask you, "Sir, would you like chips or a Coke with that?" I never get chips and a Coke. On those rare occasions when I eat at a Subway, I get a foot-long whole wheat sub crammed with green bell peppers with a few olives and tomatoes and possibly some onions depending on how risky I feel. No cheese, no mayo, invariably no soda pop. But they always ask me, "Sir, would like chips or a Coke with that?"

Last time I purchased gasoline I noticed it too, but this time it was automated. The little screen that asks if you will pay inside or out, tells you when to insert your card, and asks whether you want a receipt printed out, also suggested I make a purchase inside. Thank you but no thank you. In fact, I withdraw all my thank yous. No thank you secular businesses, for treating me as less even than a number and as no more than a sheep to be sheared, no more than a target to be exploited. I find my identity and my self-valuation in the Lord Jesus Christ; certainly not in my capacity to be exploited by a materialistic world with no spiritual eyes.

Since spiritual things are spiritually discerned we ought not be surprised (although we can still be rightly appalled) that we are viewed as mere targets to be exploited. Our value as people is a spiritual matter. I am valuable because God made me for His glory and His pleasure; I am valuable because My Father so valued me that He gave His only begotten Son Jesus Christ for me. What He suffered and endured to bring me back out of hopelessness and remake me in His image--that's something I cannot know. All of this is beyond a theory or an intellectual project embarked upon by God. Jesus and the Father experienced a separation new to them when Jesus died on the cross to give His life for me. Nor did Jesus die for us to create a love for us in the Father, but instead it was because of the love already in the bosom of the Father for us that He gave Jesus to us.

We may not think often of the way the world exploits us, but it's written all over our decaying society today. It's much more than the suggestive sale. The marketers have created a mix-and-match set of images for us to choose from. Whether its Ford or Chevy, computer geekery, steroid muscle-guy, or thin attractive females in the latest styles, our culture has set up a series of "pre-sets" and they want to assist us in fitting into them with their deft help. And to each target group comes a unique mix of schemes for exploitation. Fit into their jello-mold and everything will be just fine. For them. They will gladly sheer you, gladly floss your wallet, gleefully make merchandise of you. Paramount in their value system is the material, the measurable, the financial, the exploitable. Long ago we left behind our innocence and the ethic around us became a non-ethic. We are far along the postmodern slide, far from home and journeying farther from any meaningful Judeo-Christian values.

There is something new today though. You can go to the mall and buy yourself a T-shirt with some clever "Christian" saying or message on it. You can go into the Christian bookstore, and if the doctrinal books and the Bibles are sparser than they used to be don't worry; you can still get the latest video or CD or Christian jewelry. Ahem.

Exploitation comes in more varieties than the monetary. Churches focus on people. A good church has many people and is growing fast. A bad church has few people and is not growing rapidly. The currencies within a church vary depending on the current fad. Is it counting church buildings? Not likely; that's pretty passe. Is it the number of cell groups? That's more current. Is it the number of "celebration" churches or "experimental" churches? Is it the number of baptisms? Is it the number of "diverse" people groups currently being emphasized?

Because churches count people they have gotten a bad rap. After all, you don't really want to be checked-off for the people group you happen to represent do you? I'd rather be known as a Christian and as a Seventh-day Adventist first, and only somewhere after that as male, white, and bow-legged.

If we'll be honest we should recognize that we ought to cut the church some slack for counting people. It is a proper part of our work to know who's a part of the covenant group we are all joined together in. That's legitimate. What's not legitimate is to make a numbers game out of everything and join to the church on paper those who are not joined to it in actuality. When bodies become commodities we venture into our own form of exploitation. When the practice becomes baptize everything that moves, we become sheep-shearers and not hope-bringers; we become hirelings exploiting on the same materialist basis as the poor teen-ager behind the counter who is commanded to ask you, "Sir, do you want chips or a Coke with that?" Sure, we may say the numbers are legitimate because it's spiritual. But we're descending into a place where we do not really want to be.

Church membership is a line drawn in the sand. It stands for something and will continue to stand for something. The individual churches and varied leadership choose whether it means anything in their section of the work. But we will always be divided between the fleeced and the few.

The fleeced are those who present themselves for baptism but are ripped-off in the process. Those whom they present themselves to do not work with them, do not prepare them properly, do not work through certain lifestyle points that ought to be handled at the front of the membership experience. The fleeced are also the congregations where the leadership takes an overly laid-back approach to church membership. So, joined to that local covenant body of believers are unbelievers. When this process goes critical you have devastating apostasy. Sunday-keeping was not brought into a church centuries ago that that was strong, but a church that was compromised.

I hate to call the other group the few, but I will. The few are inevitably those who see the boundaries drawn between the world and the church and insist upon guarding them. Such activity marks them as malcontents and troublers of the people. Yet without them God's people would long ago have become Satan's people. These insist that standards be upheld, that the newcomers be labored with, that membership means something. It's true, there are those out there who are gate-keepers bent upon keeping certain church offices in their grasp and who's gate-keeping has nothing to do with an interest in keeping the church where God can bless it. There are some of those out there. I recall a head elder who, when not asked to serve again as head elder then refused to serve in any capacity. His whole identity was consumed in his positions. He was a materialist just as much as the suggestive sale tactic shows most businesses to be interested in only the bottom line. But may God bless the vigilant souls who, with an eye to the glory of God just make sure that everything is right when new people come in. They are real heroes in this sorrowful age.

Church membership is meaningful. One joining the church joins one's self in covenant relation not only with God but with His local ekklessia--His local group of those "called out" from the world. Church membership puts us into a position of responsibility to one another. In this capacity "all ye are brethren." The pastor ranks no higher than the local elder, and the local elder is a member just as is every other member of that body. As a church we forsake not the assembling of ourselves together, because in that assembling is when the reality of the faith is shown in its most clarified sense. What God's church is is evidenced on Sabbath morning in the sanctuary. It is evidenced in prayer meeting and wherever the testimony of what God has done through us for the world around us--particularly salvifically--is shared.

It may not be appreciated to make this remark, but those who are in the church and who are converted--those are they through whom the gospel is being manifest. Those on the books on earth but absent from the record in heaven are mere cargo on a journey to a closed market. They are the fleeced, the sheared. They slow the progress of the cause. Woe unto those who roll out the red-carpet for the unconverted and encourage splash-dunk baptisms. Are we just marking these off on a sheet, or are they joining the covenant body? Is one a soldier joining the war, or a non-combatant on a joy ride, still locked in the material world?

At this time every Adventist worker must rise above the temptation to baptize anything that moves, and rise above the sparkling mirage of numbers. Make converts, "converts" in reality. Be true shepherds and not hirelings. Start shearing our self-congratulation instead of shearing the sheep. May we weigh these issues, and turn, and repent, and pray that heaven will show us how to turn to a more faithful work, and salvage the honor of God's Church.

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