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But we also need to recognize that no matter what we do, consumerism will unavoidably define the context for how people view the church in our consumerist age. All communication will be perceived as marketing. All self-presentation, even church advertising, will be perceived as branding. And all outreach will be viewed as sales. There is nothing we can do to change this context.

All the more reason for us to defy expectations. Spiritual consumers will come to Christianity as do window shoppers at a mall, wanting a spirituality tailor-made to their preferences. They will want this because consumption is the only salvation they have ever known. They will bring all of their riches and perversely be unable to conceive of grace because they cannot imagine a thing that cannot be bought.

They will come before our stained-glass seeking a storefront in exactly the same way that people in Jesus' day came to him, searching for what they expected to find. Then they were looking for a crazy man, a teacher, a healer, a prophet, a revolutionary—and, at the end, a corpse. Today they are looking for a spiritual brand.

In Jesus' time, they found a living Messiah and Lord. They found the God for whom they had not even been looking. The question for us in our time is whether seekers will find the world-transforming body of the Lord, formed by the Spirit—whether, expecting something new to buy, they will instead be surprised by God.

Tyler Wigg-Stevenson is direct of the Two Futures Project. He is an ordained Baptist preacher and author of Brand Jesus: Christianity in a Consumerist Age (Seabury Press).

Correction: Due to an editing error, the article failed to clarify that it was only the Four Spiritual Laws themselves that do not mention the church. The document does mention church in a separate section.

Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Christianity Today reviewed Wigg-Stevenson's book and posted an excerpt.

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January 2009, Vol. 53, No. 1