I was reading the business section of our local paper the other day and the pages were filled with all the new restaurants coming to the Nashville area. Every day, it seems, a new restaurant is opening up in Music City. We're getting the reputation for being a "foodie" town these days. On the other hand, there's just as many restaurants closing in Nashville. Naming our favorite restaurant is the new parlor game in Nashville.
The challenge with metaphors is that they can overpromise and underdeliver. A restaurant metaphor sets up a "goods and services" approach to church, which will cause churches and their leaders (restaurant managers?) to feel the pressure to perform and provide services often outside their God-given gifts. It may even put these "goods and services" at odds with what the Kingdom of God is actually asking of them. I get the idea of a church with a good "restaurant" menu. Just want to make sure we don't go trying to be a Michelin 5 star, when a home-cooked meal around a table, with neighbors and strangers, is the better/best thing. The days of "build a good restaurant (church)and they will come" are over.
I clicked the heart symbol, but I don't really "like" this analogy. Please forgive me. I've always had a visceral reaction to whenever someone, howsoever well intentioned that they are, analogizes the Bride of Christ to a business, and I also wonder if when a person is going from church to church looking to have their wants or needs met if they really understand what "church" is all about or, even, if they are really believers in Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ is a real live Person, He will tell someone who is following Him where to go to serve and to fellowship and to love one another . . . won't He? When persecution comes . . . and come it will because He told us that it will . . . and when the followers of Jesus Christ have only the presence of one another and His Holy Spirit when they are able to meet together, sometimes in secret, then the Bride's Beauty truly shines and only those who are Christ's, or are becoming His, find Her Beautiful.
The challenge with metaphors is that they can overpromise and underdeliver. A restaurant metaphor sets up a "goods and services" approach to church, which will cause churches and their leaders (restaurant managers?) to feel the pressure to perform and provide services often outside their God-given gifts. It may even put these "goods and services" at odds with what the Kingdom of God is actually asking of them. I get the idea of a church with a good "restaurant" menu. Just want to make sure we don't go trying to be a Michelin 5 star, when a home-cooked meal around a table, with neighbors and strangers, is the better/best thing. The days of "build a good restaurant (church)and they will come" are over.
I clicked the heart symbol, but I don't really "like" this analogy. Please forgive me. I've always had a visceral reaction to whenever someone, howsoever well intentioned that they are, analogizes the Bride of Christ to a business, and I also wonder if when a person is going from church to church looking to have their wants or needs met if they really understand what "church" is all about or, even, if they are really believers in Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ is a real live Person, He will tell someone who is following Him where to go to serve and to fellowship and to love one another . . . won't He? When persecution comes . . . and come it will because He told us that it will . . . and when the followers of Jesus Christ have only the presence of one another and His Holy Spirit when they are able to meet together, sometimes in secret, then the Bride's Beauty truly shines and only those who are Christ's, or are becoming His, find Her Beautiful.
Thank you Mike , great analogy.