Recently I stumbled onto the work of artist Katerina Kamprani. She has a series of pieces titled “The Uncomfortable,” where she makes inconvenient versions of everyday objects. My favorites are the different chairs. I got a chuckle picturing someone trying to make use of them. What makes these pieces so amusing? I suspect it’s how ironic and ridiculous they are. It’s obvious what’s supposed to be a chair, a fork, or a broom—ostensibly for sitting, eating, and sweeping—but its shape makes it impossible. Its form runs counter to its purpose.
I’ve been a Baptist my whole life. I can tell you that we love three things: fellowship, discipleship, and evangelism. No one gives to missions like we do. No one is committed to depth in relationships like we are (Acts 2:42-47). And no one takes seriously the Great Commission like we do (Matt. 28:18-20). We are deeply congregational. We believe in every member ministry (Eph. 4:11-16). We love fellowship. We love discipleship. We love evangelism.
But we often find ourselves scratching our heads and asking: why isn’t this working? Why do our well-intentioned efforts seem to fall short? Why aren’t our people more invested? Why do our people arrive late and leave early? Why don’t they welcome people into their homes? Maybe especially in the last few decades, it seems our churches have lost their zeal for these things.
There’s lots that could be said to this, no doubt; the loneliness epidemic, the American culture of fear, our declining trust in institutions, our cultural malaise, and the ways Covid-19 irreversibly changed the world. But I want to argue that the culprit is more subtle. I suspect that, though our message is correct and our hearts are in the right place, our methods are contrary to our message; our forms run counter to our purpose. It may be a chair, but its shape doesn’t allow for sitting.
The Medium is the Message
Canadian media ecologist Marshall McLuhan famously wrote, “the medium is the message.” McLuhan’s point is that regardless of what’s being said across a particular form or medium, the form or medium itself says as much, if not more, than the thing being said, consciously or unconsciously.
For instance, expanding on McLuhan, Neil Postman argued that television forever changed the way Americans evaluate presidential candidates. The presidential debates are ostensibly about persuasion, the best policies, and the candidate with the best vision for the American people. But with the advent of a new form through which these debates could be delivered—the television—our attention was redirected from policy and ideas to presence. Prior to television, debates were often published through the newspaper. Think about how different of an experience that would have been. You may not have even known what the candidate looked like! But television, as a visual medium, necessarily highlights qualities like charm, good looks, and charisma. That radically changes the way we evaluate candidates. The medium is the message (or at the very least dramatically affects it!)
So how does this all apply to ministry?
I’d simply argue this: our forms often run counter to our purpose.
We love fellowship, discipleship, and evangelism. But our ways of “doing church” do not communicate that same passion. Our ministry structures don’t facilitate our purpose, rather, they obstruct it. The chair’s shape doesn’t allow for sitting.
In the next article, I’ll argue exactly how that’s the case. We’ll consider how our approach to membership, the shape of our worship gathering, our song choices, our leadership structures, and even our use of social media may inadvertently be creating consumers, not disciples.
Trevor Hoffman is a teaching pastor at Ridgewood Church in Greer.