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More Than a One-Night Stand
- By Wendy Walker
- Published 12/20/2007
- Theological Themes
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Beyond Mere Event Hype
It was the event of the year—maybe even the decade. Word spread fast and the crowds gathered. They cheered. Numbers hit record highs, with impressive all-age worship—with even the youngest present calling on the name of the Lord. Ah, what a youth ministry success! Jesus was exalted. His red carpet was made up of the coats off their backs. Their pom-poms were palm leaves. What an event! Certainly one for the annual report.
But…
I wonder what Jesus must have thought when the cheers that echoed in his ears on Palm Sunday turned into bloodcurdling screams calling for his crucifixion less than a week later. “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
His entry to Jerusalem was an event of great glory, ordained by the God who rides a donkey, and in many churches it’s celebrated annually with joy. But as quickly as the palm leaves wither in the back of the sanctuary comes the reminder of this great event’s aftermath—a hopeful excitement is revealed as selfish demand for a military Messiah, and an innocent man is put to death.
Even the most Christ-centered event has the potential to twist or fall. In the hype of noise and numbers, the young people we draw to our events could find themselves receiving an inaccurate impression of who God is and—like the crowds at the gates of Jerusalem—formulate faulty expectations.
This doesn’t mean we need to stay away from events altogether, but if our events are going to foster ever-deepening relationships with God rather than act as one-night stands that leave both parties ultimately hurt and rejected, we must keep a couple of things in mind to stem the tide of short-lived hype.
Commercialism
Shopping malls pull out all stops in their marketing campaigns to produce and portray exactly what their buyers want. Our society is used to filling out service questionnaires and asserting their authority in every store and restaurant—after all, “the customer is always right.”
Many musicians reject the notion of pop music, and some artists refuse to do any work commissioned for a purpose. The reason? Commercialism can taint the original intent of a work of art; and so, too, it is with ministry events.
In planning events to draw young people, there a fine line exists between being relevant and having a retail mentality where we design each aspect of the event to please the “customers.” The problems when we cross that line are many. One is that our target group-aimed events become so tied to a specific homogenous demographic that we lose the ability to draw diverse crowds. We find we’re no longer calling out to a Kingdom gathering of believers but rather to the limited type that matches our target design.
In the New Testament, ministry was never based on creating spirituality that conveniently matched the preference of the people; there was no consumer-oriented “what can we do for you” approach on the part of the apostles. Rather, Paul writes to the Galatians, “I am not trying to please people. I want to please God. Do you think I am trying to please people? If I were doing that, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10 CEV).
Consumerism
In addition to being based on our own plans and desires (as opposed to God’s), our consumer society lends itself to further selfishness because it’s always focused on receiving rather than giving. Event planners too often concentrate on what those attending will get out of it rather than encouraging students to reach out to others or to honour God by attending the event.
Similarly, the message of an event is often to call the masses to “come.” A calling to be with God is not unbiblical in any sense—throughout Scripture God calls the people to come, such as the invitation to all who are thirsty (Isaiah 55:1 NIV) to come to the waters, as well as Jesus’ one word that emboldened Peter to step from a fishing boat to the stormy waters: “Come” (Matthew 14: 29 NIV).
However, in the testimony of the Bible, the call to “come” is never isolated from the call to “go.” Moses was called to go and free God’s people; the disciples were called to go and make more disciples.
Those we attract to events are not called by God only to come and to consume what’s offered; they’re called to be challenged throughout any event, to go from there, giving as if being sent to make a difference for the Kingdom.
Events in ministry, though, often focus only on the “come and get” and ignore the “give and go.” Gatherings become a sort of “holy huddle” where God’s movement is simply circulating around those present (until the next event) and not breathed into the community.
Crowd Mentality
The best part of an event is often the buzz in the air. Apart from the talks, the gadgets, or whatever drawing cards are flashed around, what really makes it enjoyable for most is the sense of excitement that the purposeful gathering of like-minded people can create. There’s value in the enthusiasm of a multitude of worshipers, because it can build community and encourage believers to come to God together in the unity of mutual joy.
However, the hype created by any large event has the potential to highlight emotional reactions that many simply see as spiritual response to God. Young people who learn to associate encounters with God with exhilarating thrills at wild events may find it hard to recognize God’s presence in the stillness—in quiet moments in their rooms, in times of stress and struggle, and when they find themselves alone.
The danger, too, is that a young person won’t access the presence of God available right there in the broken silence but instead will yearn for another opportunity (or event) where the presence of God is hyped up in the presence of others. This critical problem produces event junkies who move from one mountaintop experience to another with no connection to God in the valleys in between. Alternatively, it attracts students who are exhilarated by the experience of an event only to be let down when they wake up the next morning feeling all alone—lacking the ability to foster an ongoing spiritual relationship with God.
Control
Tied in to this concept of a crowd mentality is the tendency of a large group of people—particularly teenagers and young adults—to be controlled by peer pressure. There’s value in positive peer examples where a community of young people moves together as a united group. However, even positive peer pressure can be negative when it transfers the locus of control in a young person’s life from God (or at least their personal commitment) to a process of conformation to fit in.
With every mouth screaming “yes” or every hand signing a purity pledge, personal commitments or even acts of worship can lose their purpose when the motivation to respond is not spiritual conviction as much as a prearranged, appropriate reaction to the program.
Challenge without Care
Do we have the authority to draw people in and speak into their life situations before we have established a point of contact, trust, and care?
Rev. Paul Verreyne, a Methodist bishop in South Africa, always warns ministers in training that they should not dare to challenge anyone if they do not first care.
Emotions are evoked in every talk or sermon, and certainly at most events, and onlookers are challenged in their lifestyles and beliefs. The danger with drawing people in and stirring up their lives is that at the end of the evening when people go home, many walk out that door with hearts that have connected deeply with a moving concept—some were even sliced open for surgery—but have no one to help them engage the process beyond that evening, even if it’s just to stitch up a wound, so to speak.
Calculation of Success
My final concern is the question of how we calculate whether or not an event has been successful. It’s noteworthy that Scripture indicates that God’s satisfaction with a disciple has nothing to do with their popularity or the numbers they attract, but their faithfulness to the prophetic message of God.
In big events, it’s easy to become swept up in the numbers we attract, the fun factor, and financial profit. While each of these points may be a valid consideration, it’s a gander when these become a focus rather than the greater gospel issues of discipleship and transformation.
Conclusion
Events can be a great opportunity for Christian unity, corporate worship, and evangelism. When we stray toward these dangerous zones of unpredictability, however, they can leave those who attended the event with a sense of emptiness and rejection—and then they, too, may find themselves calling for Christ’s crucifixion within weeks or months or years.
By keeping an eye on our motives and not allowing our culture to dictate all our words, we can minimise the chances of mistaken expectations and abruptly broken hearts.
But…
I wonder what Jesus must have thought when the cheers that echoed in his ears on Palm Sunday turned into bloodcurdling screams calling for his crucifixion less than a week later. “Crucify him! Crucify him!”
His entry to Jerusalem was an event of great glory, ordained by the God who rides a donkey, and in many churches it’s celebrated annually with joy. But as quickly as the palm leaves wither in the back of the sanctuary comes the reminder of this great event’s aftermath—a hopeful excitement is revealed as selfish demand for a military Messiah, and an innocent man is put to death.
Even the most Christ-centered event has the potential to twist or fall. In the hype of noise and numbers, the young people we draw to our events could find themselves receiving an inaccurate impression of who God is and—like the crowds at the gates of Jerusalem—formulate faulty expectations.
This doesn’t mean we need to stay away from events altogether, but if our events are going to foster ever-deepening relationships with God rather than act as one-night stands that leave both parties ultimately hurt and rejected, we must keep a couple of things in mind to stem the tide of short-lived hype.
Commercialism
Shopping malls pull out all stops in their marketing campaigns to produce and portray exactly what their buyers want. Our society is used to filling out service questionnaires and asserting their authority in every store and restaurant—after all, “the customer is always right.”
Many musicians reject the notion of pop music, and some artists refuse to do any work commissioned for a purpose. The reason? Commercialism can taint the original intent of a work of art; and so, too, it is with ministry events.
In planning events to draw young people, there a fine line exists between being relevant and having a retail mentality where we design each aspect of the event to please the “customers.” The problems when we cross that line are many. One is that our target group-aimed events become so tied to a specific homogenous demographic that we lose the ability to draw diverse crowds. We find we’re no longer calling out to a Kingdom gathering of believers but rather to the limited type that matches our target design.
In the New Testament, ministry was never based on creating spirituality that conveniently matched the preference of the people; there was no consumer-oriented “what can we do for you” approach on the part of the apostles. Rather, Paul writes to the Galatians, “I am not trying to please people. I want to please God. Do you think I am trying to please people? If I were doing that, I would not be a servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10 CEV).
Consumerism
In addition to being based on our own plans and desires (as opposed to God’s), our consumer society lends itself to further selfishness because it’s always focused on receiving rather than giving. Event planners too often concentrate on what those attending will get out of it rather than encouraging students to reach out to others or to honour God by attending the event.
Similarly, the message of an event is often to call the masses to “come.” A calling to be with God is not unbiblical in any sense—throughout Scripture God calls the people to come, such as the invitation to all who are thirsty (Isaiah 55:1 NIV) to come to the waters, as well as Jesus’ one word that emboldened Peter to step from a fishing boat to the stormy waters: “Come” (Matthew 14: 29 NIV).
However, in the testimony of the Bible, the call to “come” is never isolated from the call to “go.” Moses was called to go and free God’s people; the disciples were called to go and make more disciples.
Those we attract to events are not called by God only to come and to consume what’s offered; they’re called to be challenged throughout any event, to go from there, giving as if being sent to make a difference for the Kingdom.
Events in ministry, though, often focus only on the “come and get” and ignore the “give and go.” Gatherings become a sort of “holy huddle” where God’s movement is simply circulating around those present (until the next event) and not breathed into the community.
Crowd Mentality
The best part of an event is often the buzz in the air. Apart from the talks, the gadgets, or whatever drawing cards are flashed around, what really makes it enjoyable for most is the sense of excitement that the purposeful gathering of like-minded people can create. There’s value in the enthusiasm of a multitude of worshipers, because it can build community and encourage believers to come to God together in the unity of mutual joy.
However, the hype created by any large event has the potential to highlight emotional reactions that many simply see as spiritual response to God. Young people who learn to associate encounters with God with exhilarating thrills at wild events may find it hard to recognize God’s presence in the stillness—in quiet moments in their rooms, in times of stress and struggle, and when they find themselves alone.
The danger, too, is that a young person won’t access the presence of God available right there in the broken silence but instead will yearn for another opportunity (or event) where the presence of God is hyped up in the presence of others. This critical problem produces event junkies who move from one mountaintop experience to another with no connection to God in the valleys in between. Alternatively, it attracts students who are exhilarated by the experience of an event only to be let down when they wake up the next morning feeling all alone—lacking the ability to foster an ongoing spiritual relationship with God.
Control
Tied in to this concept of a crowd mentality is the tendency of a large group of people—particularly teenagers and young adults—to be controlled by peer pressure. There’s value in positive peer examples where a community of young people moves together as a united group. However, even positive peer pressure can be negative when it transfers the locus of control in a young person’s life from God (or at least their personal commitment) to a process of conformation to fit in.
With every mouth screaming “yes” or every hand signing a purity pledge, personal commitments or even acts of worship can lose their purpose when the motivation to respond is not spiritual conviction as much as a prearranged, appropriate reaction to the program.
Challenge without Care
Do we have the authority to draw people in and speak into their life situations before we have established a point of contact, trust, and care?
Rev. Paul Verreyne, a Methodist bishop in South Africa, always warns ministers in training that they should not dare to challenge anyone if they do not first care.
Emotions are evoked in every talk or sermon, and certainly at most events, and onlookers are challenged in their lifestyles and beliefs. The danger with drawing people in and stirring up their lives is that at the end of the evening when people go home, many walk out that door with hearts that have connected deeply with a moving concept—some were even sliced open for surgery—but have no one to help them engage the process beyond that evening, even if it’s just to stitch up a wound, so to speak.
Calculation of Success
My final concern is the question of how we calculate whether or not an event has been successful. It’s noteworthy that Scripture indicates that God’s satisfaction with a disciple has nothing to do with their popularity or the numbers they attract, but their faithfulness to the prophetic message of God.
In big events, it’s easy to become swept up in the numbers we attract, the fun factor, and financial profit. While each of these points may be a valid consideration, it’s a gander when these become a focus rather than the greater gospel issues of discipleship and transformation.
Conclusion
Events can be a great opportunity for Christian unity, corporate worship, and evangelism. When we stray toward these dangerous zones of unpredictability, however, they can leave those who attended the event with a sense of emptiness and rejection—and then they, too, may find themselves calling for Christ’s crucifixion within weeks or months or years.
By keeping an eye on our motives and not allowing our culture to dictate all our words, we can minimise the chances of mistaken expectations and abruptly broken hearts.
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Comments
Comment #1 (Posted by an unknown user)
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While I agree with much of what you say throughout this article, I have some issues when you say, "our target group-aimed events become so tied to a specific homogenous demographic that we lose the ability to draw diverse crowds. We find we’re no longer calling out to a Kingdom gathering of believers but rather to the limited type that matches our target design."
The problem I have with this stance is that, in at least our metro area, there are dozens of events each night that are specifically designed to draw students away from us and in to their venues. If we don't market and reach out to the unbeliever in a way that entices them, or at least seems like it could be something cool, they wont even walk through the door.
Once they are a believer, I might agree with you. Although, even kids who are believers may choose a really cool non-Christian event over a Christian one if your goal is to be broadly focused in your city and not hyper focused on a smaller target age group.
That just my experience.
