Those who want to market the church to one sort of person and bypass the rest may argue that most churches primarily reach a certain type of person, whether black or white, whether affluent or middle class. However, there is a difference between recognizing a fact (some churches will have difficulty reaching some kinds of people and do better reaching others) and formulating a policy (the church will only attempt to reach some kinds of people and will bypass the rest). We would argue that a “market-driven” strategy of wrapping the gospel in the cultural preferences of a selected group seems to be the kind of thing that the Apostle Paul steadfastly refused to consider. The Corinthian Greeks were quite fond of the Hellenistic tradition of oratory with its sophisticated arguments and rhetorical flourishes. His converts seemed to have expected to hear this tradition in the preaching of the Apostle Paul and demanded it of their own preachers. Would not borrowing from this rhetorical tradition have given the church an opportunity to “contextualize” the gospel, as popularly understood today? Shouldn’t he want to “speak their language?” Yet the Apostle Paul rebuts any departure from the simplicity of the gospel in either its contents or form of presentation. Both the message and manner must be unembellished, even stripped of cultural enhancements, he insists. First Corinthians 1 and 2 are an extended rebuttal of packaging the gospel according to the world’s wisdom, whether in manner or message. The Apostle Paul’s presentation of the gospel was not sophisticated by the contemporary standards of the Greco-Roman world and he was theologically opposed to making it impressive. He writes,

And when I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. (1Co 2:1)

He readily admits,

And I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. (1Co 2:3)

Further,

And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power (1Co 2:4)

Think through the implications of the Apostle Paul’s words very carefully. Notice his concern for both “speech” (manner) and “wisdom” (message) (1 Cor 2:1), for his “message” and “preaching” (1 Cor 2:4). He insisted upon a simple gospel of “Christ crucified” (1Co 2:3) and a simple presentation lest faith have a natural source in “the wisdom of man” rather than a supernatural origin in “the power of God” (1Co 2:5). He steadfastly refused to adorn his preaching though he knew that for the Greeks its simplicity was “foolishness” (1 Cor 1:17ff).

If the Apostles would not sanction rhetorical enhancement in order to “contextualize” the gospel to rhetoric loving Greeks, it’s hard to imagine them going further and sanctioning the use of drama for theater-loving Greeks, or the use of the visual arts for art-loving Greeks. Whatever the Apostle Paul meant by being “all things to all men,” the locus classicus for the marketers of the church, he didn’t’ mean repackaging the gospel according to the cultural preferences of his audience (1 Cor 9:19-23). The “all things” of which the Apostle Paul speaks have to do with the rights that he has, whether as a Jew, Gentile, or Christian minister, that he gladly relinquishes in order to preach the gospel. He’ll surrender his right to eat pork and otherwise ignore Jewish dietary laws if observing those laws preserves his audience with the Jews. He’ll also surrender his right to observe these same Jewish dietary laws if observing them runs the risk of obscuring the gospel for Gentiles. The same principle applies to his right to remuneration (1Co 9:6-18). He surrenders that right for the sake of the gospel. Becoming “all things” has to do with giving up rightful liberties and privileges that might prove offensive or become a hindrance to hearing the gospel on the part of certain classes of persons.

Does this principle apply to how the Christian church conducts its worship services? It is noteworthy that the Apostles don’t apply it to liturgical matters. They don’t, and the post-apostolic church didn’t design services to suit the cultural preferences, tastes, and styles of the various groups of converts, whether Greek, Roman, Asian, Egyptian, Middle Eastern, or African. The use of 1 Cor 9:22 to justify building homogenous churches through designer ministries is unwarranted.

Furthermore, we question the whole project of targeting one group over another. It may be that for one reason or another a church is only able to reach one kind of person. Maybe its neighborhood consists primarily of one kind of person. We see no apparent problem with advertising one’s ministry or message broadly to a whole community per se. But should the church deliberately shape its services to reach one slice of the demographic: the WWII generation, the silent generation, Baby-Boomers, Baby-Busters, Gen Xers, Millenials, African-Americans, Anglos, or Latinos? Should the church allow a given demographic group’s cultural preferences (especially music) to dominate the service to the extent that it feels comfortable while every other group, inevitably, feels outside and excluded? Should a church be planted in a neighborhood and then deliberately market its ministry so one-sidedly to one segment of the population, that it alone is reached while all others are implicitly bypassed or ignored? It won’t do to say that one’s aim is “to be effective, not to be exclusive.”1 When music is generationally or ethnically specific it screams at all others groups, “this service is not for you.” Say what one will, when WWII generation believers are greeted by drums and electric guitar they know immediately that they don’t belong. The marketers of the church admit as much.

Protests not withstanding, market-driven churches end up being composed of one “kind of person” to the exclusion in practice of every other kind of person. Homogenous churches are the result of homogenous forms of ministry. Is this what Jesus intended? Is this the apostolic vision for the church? Did the Apostles envision churches made up of one kind of person, united by age, race, ethnicity, or class? To ask the question is to answer it.