by David Washburn, BGAV treasurer

I read an interesting article in which the author asserts there have been four distinct stages of the US economy: Agrarian, Industrial, Service, and Experience. He compares the history of economic progress to the four-stage evolution of the birthday cake.

I know, I know…I had a similar quizzical look on my face.

The agrarian economy saw mothers making birthday cakes from scratch, mixing all the  farm commodities of flour, sugar, butter, and eggs that cost them a couple of dimes. When the good-based Industrial economy arrived, moms paid a dollar or two to Betty Crocker for premixed ingredients. The Service economy took hold, and busy parents ordered cakes from the bakery or grocery store for $10-15—ten times as much as the prepackaged ingredients. Now comes the Experience economy, where parents neither make the cake nor throw the party. Instead, they spend hundreds of dollars to outsource to a business that stages a memorable event for the kids, and the cake is often included for free.

I’m not 100% locked in on this illustration, but I resonate with what’s being said, particularly when it’s applied to the church and her evolving economy. I imagine we could all draw a variety of illustrations from the Church’s agrarian, industrial, and service economies. They describe the Church’s past, and unfortunately, some local churches are hanging onto these eras for dear life.

As a pastor, church has always been about an experience for me: not performance and not entertainment, but an experience with the resurrected Christ. Our worship, discipleship, preaching, music, fellowship, community connections, etc. should create space to experience the resurrected Christ.

Financial giving and generosity should also be an experience—one of worship, joy, and fulfillment for the giver. Financial gifts also create an experience with the resurrected Christ for the receiver, when their lives are impacted through the church’s food ministry, ESL ministry, disaster response ministry, discipleship ministry, prison ministry, homeless ministry, worship ministry, international ministry, recreation ministry, etc. Your church’s ministries are usually only limited by time and resources.

In which economy is your church operating? How might your church’s worship, discipleship, financial, and community ministries be affected by focusing and praying for your church’s experience economy?

What doors might open and what pathways might emerge when experiencing the resurrected Christ is at the forefront of our worship, discipleship, financial, and community ministries?

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