The Church Offers What the Culture Can’t
As a youth minister, summer camp is a regular part of my life. Every year, we load up the church van and head into the middle of nowhere for a week of sleepless nights, camp food, sunburn, and ruthless competition. While I love all the craziness that comes with camp, there is one experience I look forward to above all others each year.
At the end of the week, the whole camp gathers in the gym around a white, folding table draped in cloth. That table, used for a comedy skit the day before, serves as an altar. As the students gather quietly, they are greeted by their camp leaders, now vested with collars, and are led through the Holy Eucharist. Cabin leaders stand by to pray, and many campers take them up on this offer. It’s a beautiful scene, one I look forward to every year. The reason I cherish this annual experience is that it reveals an integral truth about Christ’s one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church: this is where you come to receive Jesus.
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Stop Buying What They’re Selling
Americans live in a consumer culture. This is a reality we face every day. From the moment we wake up, our culture bombards us with products and services that promise to enhance our lives and increase our happiness. We have instant access to every song, movie, and piece of information at our fingertips. As the Church, we would be remiss if we ignored this. We cannot minister to a world that we are actively avoiding. However, it is a grave mistake to confuse our call to engage with our culture with a mandate to compete against it. When we make it our goal to keep up with the culture by offering alternative options with a Christian spin, we will inevitably lose. Furthermore, we risk commodifying the faith and presenting the Church as merely a greater option among many.
None of this is to say the Church should seek to be weird or completely alienate itself from its various cultural contexts. Good music, art, and entertainment reflect the Imago Dei—the Image of God—and can even be acts of worship to him. What I am suggesting is that in our pursuit to compete with culture, we lose sight of the fact that we are indeed offering something as the Church that the world simply cannot: communion with God.
The Church as Word and Sacrament
The Thirty-Nine Articles define the Church as this:
The visible Church of Christ is a congregation of faithful men, in which the pure Word of God is preached, and the Sacraments [are] duly ministered according to Christ’s ordinance, in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same.
Article 19
St. Paul tells us that through the Church, we grow “into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:21). The Church is not a product to be sold; however, it holds something of eternal value. It is where God’s people go to hear his Word preached and to receive his Sacraments, the greatest among those being the reception of Christ himself in the Eucharist. Through the Church, we grow in our knowledge of God and enter into communion with him.
Immersed in the Refuge
The church is our refuge. As we walk through its doors, we enter into heaven broken and hungry, but we walk out nourished, renewed, and encouraged in our mission for Christ. The Church reorients our selfish minds toward Jesus through the hearing and preaching of the Word. We confess our sins together and receive assurance of our forgiveness through absolution. Our wounded hearts find restoration in the feast of Christ’s body and blood. And we walk out on mission to the world as soldiers equipped with the armor of God for spiritual battle.
When I’m with my students at camp, we get to immerse ourselves in the refuge that the Church offers from our culture of instant gratification. The gym is no gothic cathedral, the table is far from a handcrafted wooden altar, and there is no incense to be found (though I do enjoy all of these things!). Yet, the setting is no less beautiful as Christ waits for us in anticipation as we go forward to receive him. Our weeklong retreat from the world culminates in the Eucharist.
Afterward, we are then sent back out to do the work God has given us to do. The English reformers echo this sentiment in their reminder that the church is not competing with the world; it is transcending it. We do not offer a product; we offer ourselves in a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving made acceptable only through Christ’s finished work on the cross.
The Prayer Book as a Way of Life
The Book of Common Prayer is central to Anglican identity, and its liturgy reminds us of the church’s purpose. The Prayer Book not only allows for this transcendent experience once a week but also establishes a liturgical pattern for our entire lives through the Daily Office. Martin Thornton, a 20th-century Anglican priest, popularized the idea of a threefold rule for Anglican spirituality: Daily Office, Eucharist, and private devotion. Our pattern of life as Anglicans follows the model of this lay monasticism, which continually drives us away from the world’s distractions and toward unity with Christ and his Church. While this is not the only way to grow in Christ, the Anglican way has been a precious gift for many Christians throughout time and place. Furthermore, this threefold rule directs us to the gifts of Christ offered solely through his Church.
There is No Competition
The culture has mastered entertainment and distraction. If our goal as the Church is to try to keep up with that, we will end up exhausted and discouraged. Unlike the culture, the Church is not in the business of jockeying for consumers’ attention. Instead, it is united in its mission to glorify Christ and sanctify his children through Word and Sacrament. Through the Church, we encounter Christ and grow towards him.
The Church does not need the latest and greatest to draw people in; instead, God calls us to lead people to the well of eternal life found in Christ and through his Church. Sometimes, that’s in a large congregation with excellent music and programs to meet every need. Sometimes, it’s in a gym with a tablecloth draped over a folding table. When reminded of this, we begin to see that there is no competition. The culture will continue its mission to fill time, while the Church will continue its mission to offer Christ to a world with hearts that desperately need filling.
Image: photo by Avalon Studio from Getty Images Signature, courtesy of Canva. Digitally edited by Jacob Davis.
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