We live in a day of unparalleled customization. I can get everything from my Whopper to my online news tailored exactly to my preferences. I even read that Florida is considering having high school students declare a major in order to follow a more customized curriculum (because we all know that every ninth grader knows exactly what he or she wants to do for a career ... but that's another article). The result is that we are living in Sinatra's world. Not only are we encouraged to do it our way, but to get it our way.
There are good things about that. People aren't the same. We have different interests, talents and needs, so it only makes sense that we would benefit from different products, information and hamburger toppings.
We use this to our benefit in the church as we strive to provide different ministries for children, youth, adults, men, women, couples, parents, seniors, shut-ins, orphans, and various other subgroups within the body. Those different populations have different needs and abilities, so it only makes sense that we would minister to them in different ways. It's good that we look for such opportunities, and we should keep doing it.
There is a point, though, when customization gets out of control. It is out of control when we move from valuing it to demanding it, when we change the statement "If it is customized for me, then it has value for me," into, "If it is not customized for me, then it has no value for me."
The first statement says, "Having children's Sunday school is good for children." The second statement says, "Only children's Sunday school, or something that looks very much like it, is good for children."
The first statement says, "Youth Group is a meaningful way to minister to our youth." The second statement says, "Youth Group, or something very much like it, is the only meaningful way to minister to our youth."
The first statement says, "Singing songs in a style I like is worshipful." The second statement says, "Only singing songs in a style I like is worshipful."
Paul shows us in Philippians 2 that demanding customization is especially troublesome in the church for at least two reasons:
First, demanding customization is at odds with unity. Paul writes in Philippians 2, "So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, and participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind" (Phil. 2:1-2).
Customization by its very nature unifies a few of us but divides all of us. When our preferences drive our interactions, we move dangerously close to the "days in which there was no king Israel," and "everyone did what was right in his own eyes" (Judges 17:6). We each fancy ourselves kings of our own kingdoms at the expense of being one people.
Second, demanding customization is at odds with humility. Paul continues in Pilippians 2, "Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others" (Phil. 2:3-4).
When we demand customization, we hold our preferences as more important than each other. We say, "You are only of value to me if you have something to offer me that I like and in the way that I like it." It says that being together as a body has no value in itself unless my own personal experience is maximized. It looks at a church meeting or activity and asks, "What's in it for me?"
Valuing customization is OK. It can be a very good thing. Paul doesn't say that we should abandon our own preferences and needs, only that we must keep them in check, guarding our unity in humility. We must avoid the notion that only an experience tailored to me can truly be of any value.
The point of all this, by the way, is not that we would all look and think and act the same. When Paul says that we should have "the same mind" (Phil. 2:2), he means that we should "have the same mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who ... humbled himself by becoming obendient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Phil. 2:5, 8).
The point is not that you would be like me or that I would be like you, but that we would strive together to be like Christ in unity, humility and love.
Press on!
Greg