A La Carte (2/11)

  • Tim Challies
  • 02/11/10
  • 2
Mystery Worshipers
An article at the Seattle Times deals with mystery worshipers and online church ratings. Jim Henderson, a Seattle evangelical Christian, came up with the idea to launch ChurchRater, a site that allows people to rate the churches they have visited. In some instances they pay people to rate churches and in other instances they allow anyone to rate a church as they see fit, much like you or I might post a review of a book on Amazon. What’s the problem with this? It is part of the ongoing commercialization of the church where churches are evaluated in the same way, and often by the same criteria, as businesses. The spiritual realities of a church dictate that it is not the same thing as a business. But this kind of enterprise blurs the two. I think there is great value in having an outside person provide some feedback about his experience at your church (something I did quite recently for a friend, at his request, after attending the church he pastors) just as there is value in having a brother or sister in Christ tell you things about your life that you may be unable to see on your own. But to do it in the way ChurchRater does invites abstract, anonymous and mean-spirited critique. Drive-by anonymity, transient anonymity, is not a valid basis for critique of this sort.
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Comments (2)

1
Anonymous's picture
a comment from Miriam • 02/11 @ 2:15pm

I went to check this ratings site out and see what they had to say about a certain church in Seattle. What I found was a self-proclaimed atheist (Matt Casper) who decided to take to task every “review”. It’s basically a built-in flame war and was just depressing. Makes me wonder about the motivations of the owners of the site- yet another way to make money off Christians?

Fascinating to know about, sad to read.

2
Anonymous's picture
a comment from Matt Casper • 02/15 @ 12:58pm
› visit my web site.

Hi Tim, Miriam…

The point of ChurchRater is to get people talking in a constructive manner, and I am sorry if anything I said came off as taking someone to task… I have a lot of questions about people’s beliefs, and am—frankly speaking—saddened by a lot of what I saw in some of America’s biggest churches.

And you have a point about “drive by anonymity,” but I think the website exists to help overcome that. We actually discussed “no screen names” when we launched the site, but we agreed that many people may be nervous about sharing their church experiences, and so we allow screen names… (you’ll see I don’t use one, but that’s my choice and I don’t feel the need to force it on others).

We are working to make our site anything but a flame war, and a place where experiences and beliefs are respectfully discussed. It’s discussions and dialog that are the tools to overcome judgments about beliefs and people. What’s really interesting about dialog is that the more you learn about someone, the harder is becomes to judge them.

And that’s what’s weird about judgment: it’s really easy from a distance, but so much harder up close… the more we learn, the less we judge. Anyway, off on a tangent there…

I know what you’re saying about mean-spirited anonymity. And the web has a propensity to enable such garbage. (Yes: I called it garbage… makes me mad when someone is capable of splenetic ranting, but incapable of standing by their words.)

You’ll be pleased to know (hopefully) that the ChurchRater team reads every post, ensuring that no one is just being mean or putting forth personal attacks. If they are, we pull ‘em (here’s an example: http://www.churchrater.com/node/396).

Anyway, I hope you’ll stay with us. Feedback is always a gift, right…?

Thanks,Matt