Consumer or Family? What is Your Relationship with God and his Church?

The customer is always right...

Do whatever you can to gain market share...

Give the people what they want and they will love you...

Such are the rules in a consumer driven society like ours.

One can dislike this reality, but it is what it is. This is how our society works.

For organizations like churches, this puts an interesting twist on how we view what we're supposed to be about.

While consumerism may be the rules by which society engages institutions, the reality is that churches are not, and were never meant to be primarily, institutions. 

The church is to be about relationships. 

• The relationship of God the Father to his creation, his children.
• The relationship between his children (those who currently recognize his Fatherhood, and those who don't)

The church is more family not institutions.

I know churches sometimes forget that, and that's why so many (including myself) have issues with the institutionalizing of churches.

But given that many churches forget this reality, the reality still is that the church is to be about relationships.

This has huge implications for who and what the church is to be about in a consumeristic society.

You see, even in our consumeristic society, if an individual is a member of the Ford family, or Microsoft family, etc., they don't make their purchase decisions primarily based on their tastes, but based on their placement in a particular family. 

This is huge.

It is because of this family dynamic that the church can and must continue to say some things we don't want to hear because we need to hear it. 

Hopefully, those aren't the only conversations we're having, but there are necessary times when such conversations must be had.

While it may be easier to draw the crowds by giving people what they want, the church has been called to be a moral compass to point people to our Father so that we can all be encouraged to become who we were created to be.

As we look at our relationship with God and his church family here are some very important questions we ought to consider:

• Is God your servant of your king?
• Is God an indulgent father who gives you whatever you want, or a loving Lord who gives you what you need?
• Is your relationship with God focused on what you might gain here on earth, or for what you will receive in heaven?

If god is your servant, he's not God.

If god is an indulgent father, he's not Lord.

If god is only about what you will gain here on earth, he's not Savior. 

You are family for God is our Father.