Commodification - yes or no?

Again I've been in discussion with people in the newly formed UCA close by that I've referred to in previous posts. Again the conversation went along the way of them being the form (building?) for the future & we (heritage church building) being that of yesterday. I've also spoken with an acquaintance in another area looking to rationalize buildings, bring together congregations, re-form worship, mission, etc. And the more I engage in such conversations the more the following, which is part of a review of Peter Ward's book "Liquid Church" comes true. The reason why I refer to said book & review is because one of the ministers to whom I spoke referred me to it & spoke so glowingly of what it had to say.

Special attention must be drawn to Ward's discussion of liquid church in consumer culture. Ward notes the church's function within an increasingly diverse and competitive spiritual marketplace and this has resulted in the commodification of the church as expressed, for example, in the Alpha Course in the U.K. (later exported to the U.S.) and "seeker" church approaches such as that of Willow Creek Community Church. Ward states that he believes that "commodification is essential for evangelism," and he provides an example from the "What Would Jesus Do?" or WWJD product marketing. Ward views this positively and states that "WWJD managed to incarnate Christ inside this fairly arid world [of fashion-conscious adolescence], and it did so by commodification."

In this area I must share my disagreement with Dr. Ward on multiple fronts. First, while it is true that the church has been shaped by consumerism and commodification within modernity, and to a certain extent there has been some benefit from the utilization of marketing aspects related to the seeker movement, it would seem that the modern church which is so often concerned about the dangers of syncretism has already been compromised by syncretism in its combination of consumer culture with its expressions of church in order to reach the seeker and its creation of an evangelical subculture that is consumer driven, as evidenced by the emphasis on programs, buildings, and the production of evangelical products for religious consumers inside and outside the church.

Second, I find it hard to find much that is positive with the WWJD phenomenon, whether for adolescents, children or adults, and in my thinking this provides a negative example of commodification rather than a positive example of penetrating the culture. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate and beneficial to have our lifestyles of service and self-denial serve as our personal identifiers of connection with Jesus rather than WWJD bracelets.

Third, I strongly disagree with Ward's contention that commodification is essential for evangelism. Instead of commodification we ought to be considering contextualization

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