Being Fed

There’s a foundational belief within Christian culture that is killing us. It’s something that we’ve been told for so long that our acceptance of it has become akin to accepting that the earth is round. When people say it we give an affirming nod and don’t ever question its validity because it has become a part of our framework of life and faith. It doesn’t have to do with our view of Jesus, the return of Christ, or some aspect of morality. It is the belief that we must be fed for our faith to grow. I suppose people may mean a number of different things when they say they need to be “fed spiritually,” the most common meaning perhaps being that they need to be taught. People posit that there must be someone who has more advanced biblical training who pours over the Scriptures to unlock their meaning and then deliver that meaning in an engaging and entertaining package. This ends up being one of the primary functions of the church—from sermons to Sunday school to youth group—people are taught through medium and message that they cannot grow unless they are fed. But contrary to the desired outcome of spiritual growth, this idea of being fed is a toxin that has invaded our faith and is killing us.

Before I move on I need to clarify what I’m not saying. First, I am not saying teaching is bad or useless. In the Old Testament, the life of Christ, and the ministry of the apostles, teaching played an important role. So it is not teaching itself that has a negative impact on faith. Neither am I saying that teaching is the only thing people refer to when they express a need to be fed. This is also used to refer to being led into worship through music, corporate prayer, and guided reflection. I think the rest of this article can address these elements though the focus is on the desire to be fed through teaching. Second, I am not saying that the idea of “feeding” is not biblical or legitimate. In John 6 Jesus explicitly says that we should feed on him. He also says that doing the will of the Father is his food when he is being tempted by Satan. So the words of Jesus make it clear that “feeding” is a legitimate biblical idea.

So what am I saying? First, the concept of being fed involves a passive acceptance of the proclamation of an expert. People pour into church buildings on Sunday morning to sit in a pew (or chair) to listen diligently as the expert pours forth the store of knowledge they have amassed through hours of study during the week. The primary problems with this come from the form that it takes, not the content. This form of consumption plays directly to the consumerist and entertainment values of our culture. We expect someone else to create a product that excites us and makes our lives better, preferably with as little work on our part as possible. If someone else is willing to immerse themselves in the Scripture then we don’t have to. All we have to do is show up and consume what they give us. In addition, we expect what we are spoon-fed to be captivating, entertaining, and hopefully comedic. I once had a professor who said it was a sin to bore people in preaching. The two main things that would keep us from this horrible sin? Entertainment and clarity.

In most churches on Sunday morning people are listening to a professional expound Scripture to them in ways that are entertaining and clear. This creates the impression that we have the right to easily accessible teaching. There are two major problems with this. The first is that we live in a culture bathed in entitlement and consumption. There might be other cultures where large group lectures as the primary means of teaching wouldn’t pose the same cultural issues, but in the United States our teaching methods reinforce some of the most toxic aspects of our culture. As a consumer, what happens if you’re not fully satisfied with a product? You quit using it and find something you like better. Not so bad when you’re talking about dish soap or cell phones, but that mindset is downright putrid when it comes to the church. The solution to some unclear or unentertaining sermons is to go to another church with a better product. It’s not so uncommon for people who switch churches to give the reason, “We’re just not being fed.” We come to believe that it is our right to be given clear and entertaining instruction from the pulpit each week (or moving and uplifting worship music). If our current experience is not palatable to our delicate tastes then we move on to a tastier option.

The second major problem with believing we have the right to accessible teaching is that it’s not how Jesus taught. Jesus was compelling, but he was not always clear. He spoke in parables for the express purpose of making the message more difficult to understand. There were numerous times when even his closest followers had to ask him what he meant because they couldn’t figure it out. Jesus’ example should point us in the direction of being provocative and compelling, but not necessarily easily accessible. Jesus method of teaching points us away from the “being fed” mentality. Jesus placed some food in front of people, but it was more like crab legs than applesauce. If people wanted to be filled from his words they had to work for it a little bit. They had to stick with it, work through the difficulties, and be patient. Jesus gave people what they needed for sustenance, but he didn’t put it in a bottle for them.

The American Christian idea of “being fed” is also toxic because it allows people to believe that soaking in some knowledge each week translates directly to spiritual growth. The teaching of Jesus, his example of life, and the words of the rest of Scripture are replete with the call to good deeds and obedience. All the knowledge in the world does not lead to Christian maturity. And if people are not displaying the fruit of a real faith, most of the time our solution is to feed them more. We suppose that if we can just cram enough sustenance down their throats it has to eventually result in some kind of action. Unfortunately, more and more food without action just leads to spiritual obesity. The longer someone lives in this state, and the more obese they become, the more unlikely it is that their continual feeding will ever result in anything. I was at a conference recently where a speaker compared the state of much of the church in the West to “obese babies with milk running out of the corners of their mouths.” This picture is shocking because it strikes so close to the truth.

So what should we do about it? For starters we need to begin expecting that as people grow in faith they will be increasingly capable of feeding themselves. We live in a place where the Bible is accessible in multiple translations, there are endless resources to help in explaining Scripture, and if we step back from our overloaded schedules to see what is really important we can create time to be with other believers where we will be able to feed each other. This approach may concern us that some people will choose not to feed themselves and their faith might suffer. Can you imagine Jesus, the man who taught things so difficult that most of his followers left, feeling a great deal of sympathy if that does happen? Maybe people need to wean from the spiritual bottle so that they are confronted with the importance and validity of their faith.

We also need to realize that as we participate with Christ in his redemption of the world we will be fed by him. Jesus said his food was to do the will of the Father. In the same way, when we do the will of God as revealed in Christ and through the Holy Spirit, we will be well fed by Christ. We will be fed more by Jesus as we participate in the spiritual and physical redemption of the world than we will passively consuming words from a speaker. As we share friendships where spiritual questions are shared, growth will naturally take place. We will be caused to seek out the answers to questions we have never considered and through that process our faith will grow. We will be feeding ourselves.

There is no doubt that all new life begins on milk. There is nothing wrong with providing new believers with a bottle. But our goal should not be to keep them sucking from it the rest of their lives; rather we should give ourselves to weaning them, causing them to grow to adulthood, and to feed themselves. But we cannot lead others where we have not been. It is time for the Western church to realize the destructive effects of a “being fed” mentality, to begin to exercise, and to learn to feed themselves. When this happens we will learn to mutually feed each other and to feed on Christ as we join him where he already is, in mission in the world.