Beware the Burden of the User-Friendly Experience
I’m a huge believer in making things easy for our first-time guests: less hoops. Fewer barriers. Minimal confusion.
I think many of us would do well to “begin with the end in mind” … to think through a piece of communication, a worship service, an event … before our people who will receive that experience have to think through it.
But there is a danger in user-friendly for user-friendly’s sake. A few years ago I read Micah Fries and Jeremy Maxfield’s Leveling the Church: Multiplying Your Ministry by Giving It Away. This quote caught my attention:
It is good and right and biblical for us to contextualize so the gospel can be best understood and applied. There is an inherent danger, however, in contextualization in a materialistic culture, that we would create such a user-friendly experience that we would unburden those who are a part of the family from feeling like they have any personal investment or commitment to the church. We’re tempted to treat the gospel of Jesus, or at least life as part of His church, as an add-on feature to our lives. Leadership becomes a sales pitch. We exhaust ourselves doing anything and everything we can to keep the customers coming back for more of what we can offer. No wonder our churches are so self-centered. Not only are they filled with broken and sinful human beings, but those men, women, and children are breathing the air of materialism 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, even on Sundays.
This is a good reminder. A sobering reminder. Yes, let’s make it easy for our guests to access our gatherings. Yes, let’s lower the barriers to entry. But let’s intentionally, gradually, certainly raise the bar for what it looks like to be a committed follower of Jesus. Let’s point people to something bigger than themselves. Let’s come alongside people in counting the cost of discipleship and pursuing with abandon all that Christ has in store for us.
