Everyone wants to feel good. With so much chaos and bad news, everyone needs to find something that is good and encouraging. I know that I want to feel good. It is why I love eating my grandma’s chocolate chip cookies and a tub of ice cream. When the sweets hit my tongue, I feel better. At least for a moment. The next day I find myself feeling worse.

There was a point in my life where I thought good and fun meant drinking beer with my friends late into the night, eating cheap pizza, and watching t.v. Turns out I actually feel better when I eat healthy foods, go to bed on time, and wake up early for a workout. The unhealthy route is pretty easy. The healthy route takes some discipline. The unhealthy route is quick access to dopamine. The healthy route is full of positive neurochemicals, but you have to be disciplined to access them.

I am becoming more and more convinced that many of our churches are dopamine churches. Church is, with the best of intentions, like the worse version of myself, seeking easy dopamine to attract consumers of our Christian message. Walk into a modern church, and you will wonder whether or not it is a secular concert venue or a Christian worship service. We have adopted the practices of the world in order to attract the world without seemingly understanding that, by doing so, we are trading our honor of God and our saltiness for the approval of people.

Maybe we are making the people in the crowd feel good in the moment, but what is it doing to the people’s souls?

We have incorporated lights, smoke, and volume in order to entertain our Christian and non-Christian audience. We know well the impact these stimuli have on emotions, and we aim to get people to believe in Jesus no matter the means, even subliminal manipulation. We place cameras everywhere to advertise or service for Jesus, seemingly forgetting that Jesus himself says that we will be known for our love, not our social media. The stage has become the center of our worship, not the cross or communion. The pastor is our celebrity, and loyalty to the Church is dependent on his or her charisma rather than the Bible. We seem convinced that a child would never come to Jesus unless you provided games and candy, but did Jesus offer those things to the children of his day? Would we go to a Church that is “boring”? By boring I mean one that is not dependent on human intervention to liven the service? Instead, a service that depends on the Spirit alone to show up? No. Many church growth gurus and church plants talk about the “worship experience” and not the “worship service”, because we are much more concerned with how we feel after and not how God was served.

I am much more concerned with God’s feelings than anyone else’s.

The church my wife and I intend to plant aims to redirect worship to God, that our time together is primarily in service to God. We hope to remove as much human stimulus as possible so that we can focus and hear from the Spirit that resides in every member. It is not one person leading from the front, it is the Spirit meeting each member where they are around the table. Our worship, our ministry, is participatory by all members as they are led. There is not a central group of professionals that dictate what the Spirit is saying or doing in the midst of the body.

Suggested readings:

Romans 12:2 (not conformed to the world); Matthew 5:13-16 (salt and light, distinctive, not worldly copy); John 13:35 (known by love); Colossians 3:23-24 (work/worship for the Lord, not men). These support redirecting to God-centered, participatory service.

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