McWorship, McPrayers and McPraise

A report and comment on religious trends and events being covered by the media.  This week’s item is from the Lubbock, Texas Avalanche Journal, February 6, 2001, with a headline:  “Church to feature fast foods,” date line Houston.  You want prayers with that Big Mac?  It’s a question parishioners at Brentwood Baptist Church in Houston, probably won’t hear during services but a McDonald’s soon will become part of the church’s new Joe Samuel Radcliff Lifelong Learning Center.  “A lot of us have children,” said Derrick Cyprian, chairman of the deacon board, “when we have different meetings and functions of the church a lot of times you don’t get to stop and get something to eat.  This will make it more convenient.”  The fast food joint, complete with drive through window, will be co-owned by the church and one of its members, Ernest Redman, Senior Pastor the Reverend Joe Samuel Ratliff said.  The hours and menu of the restaurant, which is scheduled to open in July, have not been set.  Redman, who owns 6 McDonald’s franchises in Houston, said the restaurant may not serve all the McDonald’s favorites, but fans can bank on world famous French fries, he said.  McDonald’s spokesman, Rick Nat, said the new store is the first he knows of to be attached to a church.  It is definitely a new territory Redman said, but a McDonald’s is a place where we look at families and we look at different people.  From that standpoint, the only first is the location.  Ratliff said the venture could feed economic development in the far south Houston neighborhood creating jobs for church members and area residents.  The 75,000 square foot learning center also houses an aerobic studio, a computer center, an arcade, a basketball court, a banquet hall and more than sixty classrooms.

T. A. McMahon:

Dave, a couple of weeks ago we had a story that had to do with a church that was opening a Starbucks so that you could get a $3.25 latte as you walked in to church and sit down.  Sometimes the pastor from the pulpit is holding his latte.  It’s a fancy coffee drink for those that don’t know.  Now, at the end of that you got on my case a little bit, Mr. Hunt, and I said, well, guess what’s next? Or what can we look forward to next, maybe a McDonald’s?  Boom, here it is, okay?  

Dave Hunt:

But Tom, well, I won’t interrupt you, go ahead.  See, I don’t know what you are coming up with.  Sometimes we don’t agree on these things but go ahead.

T. A. McMahon:

Okay, I know you don’t eat at McDonald’s, unless they are serving something with garlic…

Dave Hunt:

No, but I’ll tell you, Tom, if I’m in a third world country and they’ve got a McDonald’s I’ll go there rather than the native restaurants where I pick up all kind of diseases, but anyway—

T. A. McMahon:

Okay, so that’s a plus.  On the other hand, Dave, we have a church here who owns this franchise and is not just a McDonald’s there for fast food service but they have an aerobic studio, a computer center, an arcade, a basketball court, I don’t mind that, a banquet hall and more than sixty classrooms.  What have we got here?  75,000 square feet, is this what the church is supposed to be?

Dave Hunt:

Well Tom, if people would go to an aerobics, say they are going to go to an aerobics somewhere else, wouldn’t it be better that they went to aerobics in a church, in a Christian atmosphere?  I mean, it’s good exercise.  If I’m understanding you, Tom, you object to a church getting involved in this kind of enterprise, owning it and—

T. A. McMahon:

Well, it’s not—Dave, let me say it this way.  It’s another case in a growing development here of the church in the world and the world in the church.  I think these things—it’s just my personal opinion, you said last week you are entitled to your own opinion about some things—but it’s my personal opinion that these things disenfranchise us from the gospel.  They put all kind of things of the world in the way of why we would come to church to have fellowship and so on.

Dave Hunt:

Now Tom, you’ve got another church in Houston and I don’t know Houston and I don’t know, it may be even larger than this one, I think 12,000 members, Kirby John Caldwell is the pastor and boy, they are into everything.

T. A. McMahon:

For example?

Dave Hunt:

Well, most of it is social improvement for the neighborhood and for their members and so forth and you could hardly quarrel with that.  I just read his book, The Gospel of Good Success, and he was sixteen years at Robert Schuler’s Institute for Church Growth and I guess you could say Robert Schuller was somewhat his mentor and I can’t quarrel about helping people improve themselves in this world with their economic standing, their job and so forth but I can tell you what grieves my heart.  I read this entire Gospel of Good Success, this book, I never found the gospel in it, the gospel that would save souls and it relates right back to what we were talking about, heaven.  Nothing about heaven, nothing about life after death, but it was all about making money and being successful and feeling good on this earth.  So Tom, I would agree with you to that extent that a church would invest such money and such time in this kind of activity.  Let some of their members do it on the side, but let’s not get the church involved in this because we’ve, as you said we’ve lost our focus.

T. A. McMahon:

Well, the focus is supposed to be on heaven and the gospel and this is taking comfort; it’s raising the comfort of the church.  And, you know, I’ve heard the job of every pastor out there is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comforted.  In other words, get us to the reality of what Jesus was talking about.  Help us to grow in our personal relationship, not with a latte in hand and a Big Mac in the other listening to a sermon.  I don’t get it.