Just driving down the highway, I encounter these simulations. I listen to radio, playing back to me reproductions of music. I see bumper stickers with catchy phrases and political statements. I see billboard signs, trying to entice me with the latest restaurant. I see signs for McDonald’s, 7-Eleven, and Wal-Mart at every exit. None of these things are real, in themselves, but symbols or signs for something else. How many simulations do you encounter each day? Baudrillard would say everything we deem as real is only simulation:

"The only physical beauty is created by plastic surgery, the only urban beauty by landscape surgery, the only opinion by opinion poll surgery... and now, with genetic engineering, comes plastic surgery for the whole human species." (America, p 32)

These simulations have invaded our consciousness so greatly we confuse the facsimile with the real. Would his conclusion then be by using reason and critical thinking we can overcome this deception? Surprisingly no, Baudrillard claims this is impossible. We are too saturated. Even our so called reasoning is infected by the simulations.

"It is now impossible to isolate the processes of the real or to prove the real... all hold-ups, hijacks and the like are now as it were simulations... inscribed in advance in the decoding and orchestration rituals of the media." (Simulations, p.41-2)

What is the natural response? Panic. We desperately attempt to escape this plastic world by embracing events, activities, and lifestyles which assure us of our reality. In the panic, we overcompensate with an obsession for the supposedly authentic. Baudrillard calls these events hyperreality or more-real-than-real. X-treme sports are an example of hyperreality. X-treme sports enthusiasts pursue the rush of adrenaline as a validation of their existence in a world outlined in neon lights. X-treme sports are not the only hyperreality. Body-piercing, tattooing, talk-shows, "real TV," giant video screens at sporting events or concerts, celebrity worship, surround-sound, virtual reality, self-help manuals, telephone psychics, and fad diets, these things could all find a place in our attempts for validation. Baudrillard ironically states these things are also just another simulation. They are hyper real, not really real.

We create the X-treme church.

Instead of worshipping the Jesus Christ, suffering servant Son of God, we rally around Jesus Christ Super Star. In this context, Jesus is not Jesus---but a symbol for the divine, a concept of the Holy. Church services transform into entertainment spectacles. The pastor is an entertainer, a comedian, and a deliverer of the weekly "warm fuzzy." The offering is price-of-admission. The church service is nothing more than a talent show.

Churches want to "become postmodern," because some keynote speaker told them it brings in the young people. What they create is a light show that is not post-anything, but hyper-modern. Sure some people buy it. But do they really get anything? Has the gospel just become another marketing scheme, another sell-job to a certain target audience of co-dependent people? Is the Church of Jesus Christ just good therapy for consumer-friendly America?

Tim Celek and Dieter Zander put it best in their book Inside the Soul of a New Generation (Zondervan Publishing):

"Some churches that want to reach out to Busters (those born between 1965-1980) make an understandable error. Don’t people who have been raised on VCRs and computers require a multimedia blitz to get their attention? Aren’t dry-ice smoke, mirrors, strobes, and videos a must if you want to speak the Busters’ language? Our answer and our experience is, in a word, ‘no.’ ...Busters do not want to be entertained, but they will not allow themselves to be bored." (p.66)

Celek and Dieter believe (and I agree) this generation does not want to be entertained, so much as they want to be engaged. They desire intimacy, high touch and low tech experiences. These ideas, of course, are great in theory---but it is another thing altogether to apply them in the daily grind of ministry. How easily we fall into just replacing one simulation of the ministry with another one! We move unconsciously from doing "X-treme" to doing "authentic." Watch out!

I have been raised in an American culture where all of life’s purpose revolves around this mad quest for personal happiness, centered on all my wants and desires. The consumer market is designed to give me what I want. I want stuff dripping with good image. And darn it-- I want it now! I’ll pay anything for it. It may be fake, plastic, and fleeting, but who cares?

A deception hides in the fine print of this "me"-centered universe. The consumer market also tells me what I want to want. I think it is me wanting it, but I have just given into the market’s wooing. I have become a slave to the market---and a slave to my own desires and demands, not God’s. On this path, decisions become a fashionable choice, not a guidance of God’s will. Christianity becomes fashionable, which currently takes the form of the X-treme church-- the incarnate of Baudrillard’s hyperreality.

It’s not about you. It’s about God. Some may just reduce this warning to: "Yeah, yeah, seek God’s will, yada yada. Movin’ on." But it goes deeper: Are we "seeking God’s will" because that is the phrase we use to sell church to the masses? Then you may have created an X-treme church. Truly humble yourself. Even to the point if God calls you to be a failure for His glory, you will embrace it with joy. Even to the point if God gives you a ministry where you will never see its blessing in your lifetime, you will embrace it with joy. Remember this, if you seek the world’s approval you will get it---one tiny tombstone (maybe), a short funeral service (maybe), and a one-column obituary among a world of 5.8 billion people (maybe). If you seek God’s approval you will receive the honor of serving Him for all eternity and being among those written in the Book of Life.

Ultimately, you must not seek the X-treme. You must seek the Almighty. This search is a process which requires commitment. The same kind of commitment required of a person BASE-jumping off a cliff on a mountain bike. If you are not committed to pulling the rip cord, you will be number 47 to die from this X-treme sport. Likewise, if you are not committed to seeking the Almighty in an authentic community of believers... well, then, I wish you an X-tremely happy landing and my prayers.

When the music fades
All is stripped away
And I simply come
Longing just to bring something that’s of worth
That will bless Your heart
I’ll bring You more than a song
For a song in itself
Is not what You have required
You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear
You’re looking into my heart

I’m coming back to the heart of worship
And it’s all about You
All about You, Jesus
I’m sorry, Lord, for the thing I’ve made it
When it’s all about You
All about You, Jesus

King of endless worth, no one could express
How much You deserve
Though I’m weak and poor, all I have is Yours
Every single breath

I’ll bring You more than a song
For a song in itself
Is not what You have required
You search much deeper within
Through the way things appear
You’re looking into my heart