#106 - Should I Go to Church? (Part 3) {Reflections}

What if church wasn’t a product but a countercurrent—something that pulls us out of the cultural river and teaches us to live differently? We open up a candid look at why a healthy church community still matters: not as a perfect institution, but as a living alternative to polarization, loneliness, and consumer thinking. Drawing from Israel’s origin story—justice for the vulnerable, honest measures in business, a sexual ethic that dignifies bodies—we trace how an ancient calling can shape modern communities to bless their neighbors, not mirror the marketplace.

Across the conversation, we call out the drift toward “consumer religion,” where music and preaching are rated like apps, and move instead toward participation: serving, giving, and shared worship that forms character. We contrast the internet’s shallow notes—hot takes, instant outrage, and algorithmic speed—with the base notes of the Christian tradition: covenant, mercy, repentance, hope. Those deeper tones invite us to sit with better questions—Who am I? Whose am I? What really matters?—and to practice habits that resist hurry, image-making, and self-promotion.

This is a vision for a multi-generational, cross-class, politically diverse people who gather for something bigger than themselves and then carry that presence into ordinary life—boardrooms and breakrooms, kitchens and city councils. Honest work, hospitality to strangers, care for the poor, peacemaking across divides: these aren’t extras; they are the point. If you’ve been searching for a place that exchanges transaction for trust and speed for substance, consider this your invitation to explore a community defined by grace, truth, and shared life.

If the message resonates, share this episode with a friend, subscribe for future reflections, and leave a review to help others find the show. And if you’re local, join us at Central in Elk River—8:30 for our liturgical gathering or 10:00 for our modern gathering—or visit clcelkriver.org.

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Chapters

• 0:15 Setting The Stage
• 1:08 Church As Countercultural Community
• 2:02 Israel’s Alternative Imagination
• 4:08 Justice, Honesty, And Ethics
• 5:38 Against Consumer Religion
• 6:13 Deeper Questions Over Easy Answers
• 7:17 Shallow Notes Vs. Base Notes
• 8:41 Ancient Wisdom For Modern Life
• 9:01 Invitation And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:15

What is up everybody? Hey, Brian here, and welcome to our Reflections Podcast. I think this is episode 105, 106. 106. And this is the third part in a part three episode or part three series that uh I'm I guess I'm calling it like why why go to church? And look, there's plenty of reasons why you should why you may not want to go to church or even why you shouldn't go to church, but I want to give you three why I think you should go to church and attending worship and being a part of a church community is good for you and good for your soul and your spirit and good for your life and your family and your neighborhood and these kinds of things. No, it's not perfect. I get that. Nothing is perfect, of course. And in this remedial time, there is this you know, this tension we live in of like this now and not yet. And so church and church experiences are kind of like that. And uh there's some that are better than others, but but I think the overall experience, if you find a good one, a good fit, it can be incredibly helpful and beneficial and good for you in many, many ways. And here's reason number three. If you didn't get one and two, go back and listen to them. Um, but uh reason number three is that church is supposed to be, now they're not all like this, so be be careful and be forewarned, but church is supposed to be and can be this beautiful counter-cultural community, or as one uh writer calls it, an alternative imagination. I love it because you and I are shaped by our culture and our community that kind of is like this river that that just is flowing a thousand miles an hour, and we often will just jump in it and we're shaped by it, and uh sometimes it's just not great and it's not good, and we end up downstream a hundred miles away from where we want to be, and uh, we don't even notice all the time. So, church can be this incredible countercultural community and movement, this alternative imagination. And uh, this is the I think this is one of the biggest ideas of what church is supposed to be and supposed to do. So think back to Israel, the story of Israel in the in the Hebrew Bible in the Old Testament, when God partners with Abraham and Sarah as a way of kind of restoring the world, he's like, I'm gonna build you into this beautiful community. Uh, you'll have so many kids, they'll outnumber the stars in the sky. You can read this story in the book of Genesis and in the Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament and uh Genesis 12 and going forward. And then they become this nation called Israel, and God gives them these ways of living and being in the world uh through laws and other kinds of things that shapes them to be this kind of people that in and of themselves they were to be a counter-cultural community, a countercultural movement, uh, an alternative imagination, if you will, that was to be different than all of their neighbors around them. So when God gives them laws and like, here's how you'll treat people, here's how you'll act, here's how you'll engage with me, it was wildly different than all the places around them. So, for example, in Israel, justice for the vulnerable is extremely important. So there were laws that took care of the widows and the orphans and the poor and the foreigners. And the the cultures and nations around them were mostly exploitative cultures. They didn't care for or value the vulnerable, but Israel was supposed to. They also had to have honest business practices. So there were laws against false weights and measures because they would they would exchange you know um money and they would trade and uh through these measures or scales, and they would oftentimes people would use fake weights, and um, and there was all kinds of exploitative economic practices around them, and and Israel is not supposed to be that way. So if you read Leviticus and Amos, they were to be honest in their practices. Also, they had like a unique sexual ethic. So there were prohibitions against cultic prostitution, which was normal in that day. So you had prostitution going on in like in temples and in cultic practices. There was also rampant incest and other things that were common in these fertility religions, even like bizarre sexual behaviors with animals. It was just weird. And Israel was supposed to be different. And also there were other things as well, but uh those were just to name a few. Um, and the the biggest thing was that Israel was supposed to be a blessing to all of the people around them, to the whole world, in fact. They were to be the light of the world, the light to the nations. And so they were to be this counter-cultural movement to sort of show what it looks like to live in communion with God, the one true God, Yahweh, and to be a people who shared and took care of each other and the poor and the vulnerable and and uh and shared land and resources. They were to be a counter-cultural movement in a world going the opposite direction. And so I think that we as the church, the Christian church, ought to embody that same kind of calling, if I can borrow that, and be this uh a counter-movement in the culture today. So, in a society today that's marked by a number of things, including polarization and tribalism, and even like loneliness and disconnection or transactional relationships or consumerism, these kinds of things, the church is one of the last places and spaces where people can gather uh and and sort of ingest or inherit or see an alternative worldview and way of being in the world. It's a place where people of all ages and different income levels and uh different backgrounds and voting styles, ideally, even different careers and blue collar, white collar, and where these different people and disparate kinds of callings and places that uh and people they gather for something bigger than themselves. And ideally, it's not to be a place of consumerism. It's not to be a place where you come and consume. Now, listen, it's become this, okay? You have churches that uh very much operate as though they are, you know, um trying to market and recruit more consumers, and so they talk about product and these kinds of things. It's hard to not fall into that uh that sort of philosophy, but ideally, it's not where you come to consume anything. It's to give, to give your life away. Now, part of it's on us as well, the attenders. Like we we come with this consumer mindset, and so we tell people, well, the music wasn't good or the preaching wasn't good, or I'm gonna go across the street to that place. They offer a better product than you do. It's like, okay, well, we're all kind of at fault in this way, but ideally, it's not to be a place of consumer, you know, of more consumerism and transaction. It's supposed to be a place where we as a people can come and worship and give ourselves away and and share and these kinds of things. Religion, it's valuable, I would argue, not because it gives all the answers. Now, there are some that it gives, and I think it's wonderful, but but more so what's deeper is religion and Christianity gives us ideally space to explore good questions. And then it also offers us a different lens to see the world. This is where it's really uh its best. Not when it just gives out answers. That's not what we're doing, I think, ideally. It's to be a place that offers a different lens through which to see the world. So the church can help us imagine life, not as this endless consumerism or hamster wheel or self-promotion or self-branding, but a place of grace and hope and connection and depth and profundity. And in a culture where we're bombarded with advertising and algorithms and telling us what we want and what to do and uh, you know, how to look and how to be, the church can ask us deeper and better questions, like who are you? Who are you really and whose are you and what really matters, you know? I love it like this that you know the world in our culture is filled with what uh one writer called, he calls them shallow notes. You know, you go into Twitter and it's quick snippet, quick opinions, immediate opinions, you know. We just had recently the the shooting and and uh the killing of Charlie Kirk, and immediately everybody online, I mean, I and I'm I'm not being hyperbolic, almost everybody had an opinion right away and posted it on Facebook or Instagram or whatever, had a podcast, and it's like, man, why do we all and now look that's obviously a hot button topic, but why do we all have to have an opinion without thinking much about it? Like all of a couple of minutes have gone by and we want to post about it, our opinion, and and we're so, you know, we're so hot about it. And it's like, man, these are just shallow notes, just like quick microwave ideas, opinions, thoughts. And rarely do we think deep about things any longer or let things marinate for a couple of days or weeks or even years. We're so quick with all these, you know, we have all these tools at our disposal that can make things quick, you know, Amazon Prime, and which I love, but Amazon Prime and microwaves and instant, you know, promotion of ideas online. It's it can happen right away. And the the church, though, can offer this deeper anchor to ancient texts that have been around for thousands of years and ancient ideas and ancient wisdom and things uh like practices that are like reflecting and slowing down and praying and giving and sharing that are deep, what he calls not shallow notes, these are base notes. And the world, I think, is hungry and thirsty for base notes because we live in a culture that is just, you know, like shallow notes run amuck. And we need deeper wisdom and these ancient texts that of course the Bible reads, like it's an ancient old book. It is, but it it speaks of these incredibly profound truths that are still relevant today. How do we live with each other and how do we handle violence and injustice? And and uh is there a God that is for us and loves us, and and can we receive grace and forgiveness and these kinds of things? So the church at its best can offer this counter-cultural place and community and an alternative imagination for how to be in the world that can sort of get us out of this river that runs a thousand miles an hour downhill and help us to imagine life and our place in it in a different way, a different lens through which to see all of it. And that, my friends, is worth going and checking out. So, check it out. All right, love you guys, peace. Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget, you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 8:30, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering. Or you can check us out online at clcelkriver.org. Peace.