‘The marketplace’ - where we buy and sell. Products, services, religion, education, entertainment, media, arts, security, law, etc. Food for thought:
1. If the church (the believers collective) is not in the marketplace then it cannot be ‘missional’.
2. The church can shape the marketplace, but cannot expect to pull the marketplace into the church, or under its values, since ‘belief’ is a choice.
3. Everybody (believer and unbeliever) must be, and in fact is, in the marketplace, because everybody has bills to pay and/or responsibilities to carry.
4. If the church claims to be a non-marketplace entity, it still remains in it, confusing believers and unbelievers, and continuing to effect competition, supply, and demand, in the areas that it touches.
Here’s an interesting chap, and what he believed, but hey who wants to live in a village with no pub these days?!
8 comments:
my earlier comment on Jesus tossing tables in the temple courts comes from personal experience.
i started a small business in my home town as an experiment of local mission. in the early days, before we could afford to advertise, most of our work was from people in the local church. it began to make me feel very uncomfortable to take customers orders in a 'church meeting' but starting a business without a loan makes it too hard to say no. in the end i asked people not to 'raise orders' in a meeting.
because i take customers calls 24/7 it means that, potentially, if i miss a call, the business could fold.
ao now, the only time of the week that i switch my mobile phone off is in a time of corporate church worship or prayer. to me this is an important church/marketplace distinction and to me it is the reason why Jesus bust up the traders in the temple courts.
i can now see why buying chocolate eggs at easter, from a certain supplier, could have been seen as 'prophetic demonstration'!
How much of this thread has links with what we have already been discussing in 'Open Forum or mono-blog' and 'Church Iceberg' threads?
Out of your four statements the last one rings most true. As previously stated I think the bible is quite clear we are to be in the world but not of it!
Quite what that means in this day and age is not clear, as you quite rightly point out everybody is in the market place!
I guess it is about how far we take these things. But first we have to agree and achieve consensus on the issues about how and what should ‘the church’ (as an organisation) be shaping in the market place. These are not straight forward as I shall demonstrate, and as previously touched on in Open Forum or mono-blog.
A good place to begin (possibly) on the basis of implementing your second point could be only purchasing ethically/environmentally friendly products, however you have already highlighted in God’s fragile creation thread, you don’t think God is worried about environmental issues, however I do.
So where does this leave us given that most of us will have vastly different ideas and opinions regarding just the above issues not to mention anything else?! We can’t even obtain much help from the bible as it simply does not talk about the environment per say?!
I think the one thing we can agree on is that the bible talks about ‘justice’ issues such as feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, nursing the sick etc etc. Given your original prose where does this leave us?
where does this leave us indeed!
personally i think the only thing the church (as an organisation) should be doing in the marketplace, is making disciples who know how to live in the marketplace! you cant teach people how to swim amongst sharks from a paddling pool.
believers in the marketplace have many questions.
choosing 'ethical' suppliers might be an option, but this raises two points. firstly, as you say re:green, how do you measure 'ethical'. secondly, many organisations are wise to 'ethically thinking customers' and, of course, appear to satisfy these needs with clever branding like 'fair trade', 'investors in people', 'organic food', etc. yet some of the organisations behind the brands are less 'ethical' than before the brands appeared!
this has been on my mind, on and off, for many years. if youre interested, ive recently compiled a 7 point list of things i am keen to do as a christian in the marketplace:
1. get into it
2. recognise it for what it is
3. enjoy it
4. retain a sense of humour
5. respect contracts
6. be generous
7. exercise grace
im interested in any comments on these.
on ‘recognising it for what it is’, i’ve had more thoughts on the paradoxical ‘separable and yet inseparable’ nature of the church in the marketplace.
The marketplace is about ‘contracts’. The church is about ‘relationships’. contracts can be made and broken. relationships can be made intimate or distant, but they are always there.
the marketplace is about ‘performance’. the church is about ‘identity’. my ‘attributes’ are valuable in the marketplace; my ‘presence’ is valuable to the church. in the marketplace I have measurable skills, looks, abilities, knowledge, charisma, persuasiveness, etc. in the church i am made in God’s image, loved, chosen, a justified sinner, a slave made free, and the free, made slave. the grace I have received is immeasurable.
‘power’, as the marketplace knows it, can be removed by stripping away assets, money and credit. ‘power’, as the church knows it, cannot be removed.
on 'ethical trading', its a hard one.
in my understanding, most industries are driven by fear (e.g. security services, insurance services), by bullying (e.g. arms trade), by deception (e.g. media), by coveting (e.g. products, property, automotive)etc. none of which i understand to be activity of the kingdom of God.
but to avoid spending in these areas would mean withdrawing from the marketplace. which is non-missional.
Comments to Apr07 Demons post. Widget being fixed :)
And here's another thought: in the church, the price of 'missing the mark' is known and prepaid. In the marketplace, the cost of 'missing the mark' still has to be paid. Usually.
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