Jesus Flipped Tables. We Built a Lobby Café.

Welcome to the Worship Mall

I walked into a church not long ago and felt like I was at a conference center.

The lighting was just right. The coffee bar had four syrups and two milk options. Someone handed me a glossy flyer with brand colors and a mission statement about “impact.” And for a minute, I forgot whether I was supposed to worship or network.

That’s not shade (OK, it’s a little bit shade). It’s also just where we’ve landed.

Somewhere between the pews and the parking lot expansion, we stopped building communities and started building consumer experiences. And while we were trying to keep up with the megachurch down the road, we let capitalism rewrite the liturgy.

The Country Club Gospel

Not every church is preaching prosperity, but a lot of them are still selling comfort.

Soft music. Soft theology. A sermon that nudges but doesn’t challenge. A mission trip you can post about. And just enough activism to make people feel progressive without rocking the boat.

We’ve turned church into a clubhouse for the spiritually agreeable.

And for folks on the outside (the poor, the queer, the loud, the questioning), the message is clear:

You’re welcome to visit, but please don’t rearrange the furniture.

Capitalism Taught the Church to Sell Belonging

This wasn’t an accident.

Capitalism taught us how to hustle for worth. It told us we are what we own, what we earn, what we produce. Then it taught the Church to function the same way.

We turned grace into a transaction.

Give more, belong more.
Serve more, get recognized.
Align more, get platformed.

And somewhere in that formula, Love got repackaged into a slogan. Something slick and scalable. Something we could put on a hoodie.

Worship Became a Buffet Line

We didn’t just buy into capitalism, we decorated it with crosses and called it good theology.

Need peace? That’s in the small group signup.
Looking for community? We’ve got three models with varying levels of commitment.
Want Jesus without the politics? That’s on Sundays at 9.

We served up faith like a buffet, and everybody got to pick and choose (just don’t ask who’s doing the dishes).

And when things get hard? When there’s protest in the streets or pain in the pews? We hand folks a coffee and send them back to the “Next Steps” booth.

Who Got Left Behind (and Not in the Rapture Way)

Capitalism is built to marginalize. It needs an underclass. And when the Church adopted its mindset, it started deciding who was marketable... and who wasn’t.

So folks who didn’t fit the mold got quietly pushed to the edges:

The poor were “served,” but never centered.
Queer folks were included until they spoke up.
Disabled people were welcome as long as they didn’t need too much.
Immigrants were good for mission trips, not leadership roles.

When church becomes another brand to protect, the people who challenge the narrative are seen as threats, not prophets.

When the Message Gets Market-Tested

You want to see capitalism’s hold on the Church?

Watch what happens when a pastor preaches about racism. Or climate justice. Or Palestine.

Suddenly it’s “too political.”
Folks “feel led” to take their tithe somewhere quieter.
And the leadership starts talking about “brand risk.”

We’ve taught churches to fear discomfort more than injustice.

The Jesus We Keep Editing

Here’s the hard truth:
Jesus didn’t come to start a nonprofit with a good marketing team.

He flipped tables.
He challenged empire.
He told the rich to sell everything.
He said blessed are the poor, not the property owners.

And if your Jesus sounds more like a CEO than a carpenter with calloused hands and radical love…
you might be reading a brand guide, not the Bible.

Flip the Table. Not Just the Vibe.

If your church is more focused on customer satisfaction than spiritual liberation…
If it’s more invested in livestream quality than justice for the least of these…
If the only people who feel truly safe are the ones who can afford to blend in…

…it’s time to flip some tables.

Not to destroy the Church.
But to rebuild it around the Love that can’t be bought.
The kind of Love that fed folks before asking questions.
That showed up without a PR team.
That gave away the good stuff with zero regard for optics.

Jesus set the table for everybody.

Not just the marketable.
Not just the manageable.
Everybody.

So if your church looks more like a country club than the Kingdom…
maybe it’s time to grab an apron and start flipping pancakes instead of platforms.

Let’s stop branding grace and start living it.