Cotton Candy and Church
Over the weekend, I happened to see a food show called "Unwrapped". The premise of the series in general is to go behind the scenes to inform the viewer about the history of a particular food, or (as in this episode) how various foods are made. The subject du jour was "summertime treats" -- and I got to learn about an ice cream confection called a "Drumstick", frozen lemonade, gelato, frozen custard (a real Wisconsin favorite), salt water taffy and of course, cotton candy.
As it happens, there's only one ingredient in cotton candy -- a particular sort of refined sugar. The trick to making the stuff is the cotton candy machine. The key components of the contraption are a heating element, a spinning wheel and a huge bowl. The sugar is poured into the wheel, the heating element melts the sugar, and as the wheel spins, centrifugal force moves the liquified sugar through tiny holes in the wheel. As the thin jets of liquid hit the atmosphere, the sugar resolidifies, this time as tiny floss-like filaments that are collected onto a paper cone -- cotton candy!!!
Anyone who's ever had cotton candy can probably recall the rapidity with which it goes from something to little of nothing once inside the mouth -- nothing more than a bit of sugar infused with some food coloring and a shot of "flavoring". Not much nutritional value. Not very filling.
With all of the ecclesiastical machinery we employ in and around church, and with all of the organizational spinning we do to produce a product that will appeal to the discriminating tastes of potential "members", I wonder.
Have we substituted the sugar of "relevance" and "meeting needs" for the substance of discipleship? When people leave our liturgies, do they have anything to chew on for the rest of the week? Or does our "product" melt into nothingness in the heat of everyday life?
Over the weekend, I happened to see a food show called "Unwrapped". The premise of the series in general is to go behind the scenes to inform the viewer about the history of a particular food, or (as in this episode) how various foods are made. The subject du jour was "summertime treats" -- and I got to learn about an ice cream confection called a "Drumstick", frozen lemonade, gelato, frozen custard (a real Wisconsin favorite), salt water taffy and of course, cotton candy.
As it happens, there's only one ingredient in cotton candy -- a particular sort of refined sugar. The trick to making the stuff is the cotton candy machine. The key components of the contraption are a heating element, a spinning wheel and a huge bowl. The sugar is poured into the wheel, the heating element melts the sugar, and as the wheel spins, centrifugal force moves the liquified sugar through tiny holes in the wheel. As the thin jets of liquid hit the atmosphere, the sugar resolidifies, this time as tiny floss-like filaments that are collected onto a paper cone -- cotton candy!!!
Anyone who's ever had cotton candy can probably recall the rapidity with which it goes from something to little of nothing once inside the mouth -- nothing more than a bit of sugar infused with some food coloring and a shot of "flavoring". Not much nutritional value. Not very filling.
With all of the ecclesiastical machinery we employ in and around church, and with all of the organizational spinning we do to produce a product that will appeal to the discriminating tastes of potential "members", I wonder.
Have we substituted the sugar of "relevance" and "meeting needs" for the substance of discipleship? When people leave our liturgies, do they have anything to chew on for the rest of the week? Or does our "product" melt into nothingness in the heat of everyday life?
posted by FrGaryB | 5:29 AM
3 Comments:
It seems to me that Cotton Candy machines do only one thing: they make Cotton Candy. We don't think that if we add some wood chips that it'll create a house, do we?
So, is the problem with the "machine" or the "ingredients" that allows for the church to serve some end other than divine worship and holy teaching? If the church is serving another end then we might want to say that it is doing something, but it is not doing the work of the church.
Too sick right now to contribute meaningfully, but Lyndon, you rock. Exactly. Exactly.
Lyndon, I believe you've hit upon a central issue.
If we (as local congregations) have lost sight of the ends you have identified -- divine worship and holy teaching -- then we wind up fixating on organizational survival as telos.
When the organization is desperate enough to survive (because of our aversion toward dealing with any sort of death), then the means of "programming" geared toward "meeting the needs" of various preferred demographic groups (i.e., "families with children") become ends in and of themselves.
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