Blockbuster Church? Shift Happens...

There is a building just down the street from Incarnate Word that haunts me to no end.  It is not some boarded up old mansion where “ghoulies and ghosties” slink around on creeky floorboards sending shivers down the spines of those who might live there.  Nor is it a creepy old mansion where neighborhood children are too fearful to trick-or-treat on Halloween.  The building in question sits on the corner of Monroe and South Goodman. Once occupied by Blockbuster Video, it stands now as an abandoned reminder of a company gone extinct.  Though the letters of the sign are no longer affixed to the front of the building, their imprints have been left behind on the building’s façade.  Not only that, but just inside the large windows stand the once bright yellow and blue counters; now dulled by years of vacancy.

There was a time when Blockbuster Video owned the market in movie rentals.  They perfected the concept of renting movies.  If you happened to miss a great movie in the theatres, no worries, in just a couple of months you could travel to your neighborhood Blockbuster Video and be sure to find it on the shelf.  No more having to deal with the inconvenience of movie theatre crowds.  No more standing in line for tickets and refreshments.  No more having to hear the annoyingly incessant whispers of those around you distracting and giving away the endings of movies.  Blockbuster Video promised all the enjoyment of “blockbuster” movies in the convenience of your own home, on your own time.  What a great concept!  What could possibly go wrong?

Well as with anything else in life, when it comes to paradigms, shift happens.  Enter Netflix with a new and crazy idea for movie rentals.  Imagine if instead of having to get in the car and drive to your neighborhood video store, you could instead subscribe to a video service which for a monthly fee delivers thousands of movies and television programs directly to your family room both by mail and over the internet.  Crazy right?

At its peak in 2004, there were 9,000 iconic blue and yellow Blockbuster stores, employing over 60,000.  Apparently when this upstart company called Netflix first emerged on the video rental market a few years earlier, Blockbuster was given the opportunity to purchase it for $50 million, thus adopting its radical ideas and technologies.  Unable to imagine how such a concept could fly, Blockbuster politely declined the offer, and well, the rest is history. By 2010 Blockbuster declared bankruptcy and its final 300 stores were closed in 2013.  Meanwhile, Netflix grew to become a multi-billion dollar corporation with over 50 million subscribers in more than 40 countries around the globe.

Back to my haunting.  Clearly Blockbuster lacked the ability to envision new ways of doing things.  I can just imagine some yuckity-yuck on Blockbuster’s board of directors exclaiming, “Videos by mail?  Downstreaming directly to televisions and computers?  We’ve never done it that way before.  If it ain’t broke…”

Sound familiar?  Well, if you’ve ever spent any time around a church, it certainly does.  How often have we either spouted these words ourselves or heard others around the table do so?

Has the church become like Blockbuster, refusing to change to connect with new generations of Americans who have different needs and expectations than their parents and grandparents? Put another way:  Are we a Blockbuster church living in a Netflix world? Have we failed to imagine new paradigms for doing and being church?  Have we failed to dream?  Have we failed to take risks?

A long time ago, in his first Pentecost sermon, where his life was endangered, Peter proclaimed

“In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
   and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
   and your old men shall dream dreams” (Acts 2:17).

Lack of vision and fear of risk are not simply Incarnate Word phenomena.  They are cancers that have extended their tentacles around every congregation at some point or another.  They are  cancerous and they are deadly.  They lead to fear, stress, uncertainty, and anxiety.  They paralyze us.

Like it or not, we live in a Netflix world; a world that no longer assumes the church is legitimate.  We live in a world where many have either been hurt by the church or been discouraged by what they perceive to be hypocrisy and salesmanship fueled by an instinct for institutional survival.  We live in a world that sees us as irrelevant; talking of love but not acting upon it.

I’m sorry to say but 1959 is gone.  So too is 1985.  Heck, for that matter so too is 2004. We can no longer assume that if we just open our doors on a Sunday morning, folks will flock to join us because we are nice or if we just put the right program or person in place, young families will fill our pews and Sunday School classrooms.

Though I continue to be haunted by the old vacant Blockbuster store down the street, I deliberately drive by it every day.  In so doing, I remind myself that as your pastor, I will not simply let Incarnate Word go the way of Blockbuster.  Not when we’re feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and holding weekly prayer vigils for homicide victims in our city. (just to name a few things).

Folks in our neighborhood are looking for an authentic community of faith where they can connect with others, making a difference in the world around them.  They are looking for meaningful relationships in communities grounded in justice and guided by unconditional love.  Who better to offer that than the ones who follow the God who declares,

“See the home of God is among mortals…God himself will be with them; he will wipe every tear from their eyes.  Death will be no more…See, I am making all things new” (Revelation 21:3-5).

God does make all things new.  Together in Christ, let's dream dreams. Let's not be a Blockbuster church.  Let's adapt to the brave new Netflix world out there.  Yes, it is that simple.

Peace and Love,

Pastor Doug