When did “comfort” become the great American national value? When did people begin feeling entitled to refuse something they weren’t “comfortable” with? We’re doing a word-study today on the word “comfort,” a word that really has pestered me since I became an elder five years ago.

    Comfort, I suspect, is the gear that drives the Church Merry-Go-Round in my town — that is, our churches’ continual swapping of members. Most of us seldom ask how many gains in our own church’s membership are conversions, and how many are transferring membership from another local congregation? Many a time, new members have told me they had moved to our congregation because they weren’t comfortable with the worship services or classes or attitude or something at their previous congregation. And we know from exit interviews that some people leave our congregation because they’re not comfortable with some development. Now, whether their objections are theological, aesthetic, social, or political, comfortable is the term they choose to explain their motives. Let’s consider that term.

Definition #1: “Comfort” meaning the absence of stress.
If we say we’re not “comfortable” with praise teams or applauding a baptism or door-knocking evangelism, we probably just mean that we’re uneasy, that we have a little cognitive dissonance. We’re not judging rightness or wrongness, we’re just uneasy with it, it is not our preference.

    Comfort as the absence of stress is important when you’re hoping to get the un-churched churched. People who don’t wear ties, who don’t understand our jargon, or who don’t have nice clothes are likely to see a visit to our churches as pretty stressful. We should take away as much stress as we can for our visitors. Absence of stress is one reasonable definition of comfort.

Definition #2, though, is to use comfort as a lo-fat substitute for conscience.
Partly it’s euphemism. It’s more polite in America to say “I’m not comfortable with that” than to say, “I object. That’s wrong.” Mind you, I agree that America should be more polite, that it needs more civility and less Road Rage, more of Miss Manners and less of Howard Stern. But civility isn’t pussyfooting with immorality. A lot of “I’m not comfortable with that” is a soft soap by people who don’t want to offend a relativistic culture.

    In a culture that believes no one’s entitled to judge anything, it’s bad form to say “That’s wrong.” In 1999, the U.S. Senate asked Monica Lewinsky to explain Mr. Clinton’s motives for a certain decision, and she replied that she couldn’t be comfortable guessing what another person’s motives could be. You see, Ms. Lewinsky’s discomfort, her delicacy, proved to the Senate that she has a refined moral sense. In America, it’s uncool to say “I can’t do that in good conscience.” But it’s OK to say, “I’m not comfortable with that.” And it’s always appropriate to say, with the Seinfeld cast, “Not that there’s anything wrong with that—”

    Comfort zone as conscience. Interesting. The irony is that discomfort is a voice of conscience. We’re supposed to be uncomfortable if we find a wallet full of money and are tempted to keep it. We’re supposed to be uncomfortable if we’ve lied. Not all discomfort is the voice of conscience, but the voice of conscience always brings discomfort.

    Discomfort can also be a warning in the presence of wrong. We teach children to avoid molestation by telling them, “Don’t let anyone touch in places you’re uncomfortable.” That’s good advice. We adults can use discomfort as a moral warning system. If we’re not uncomfortable hearing obscenities in a movie, we’re jaded. If we’re not uncomfortable watching gratuitous sex and mayhem in a movie, we’re jaded. Jadedness — to be comfortable and accepting of all that — is a dangerous condition morally. Not all discomfort is the voice of conscience, but the voice of conscience always brings discomfort.

Definition #3: Comfort as the idolatry of one’s own preference.
One time, our elders learned that one of our couples seemed to be headed for divorce. One of the partners was threatening to walk out and was strongly rumored to be carrying on an affair. It was my job to phone this person who seemed to be the main offender, to express our concern and ask for a little conference. I was turned down cheerfully, neatly, decisively, with the phrase, “Oh, I don’t think I’d be comfortable with that.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’d be comfortable with that.”

    I just about had to bite my tongue. I knew that if I lashed out, there’d be no hope of getting the person into counseling, bringing persuasion of sin, or rebuilding the marriage. But how much I wanted to say, “Oh, you’re not comfortable! Surprise, surprise, when you deserve to be called down for adultery and marriage-busting. God doesn’t want you to be comfortable, He wants you to be good. He wants a broken and a contrite heart, not spineless pandering to your foolish sense of comfort.” No, I didn’t say that out loud. It wasn’t just this person’s brazenness that upset me, it was the absolute confidence that one American is not entitled to make another American uncomfortable, even if one of them has the obligations of a spiritual shepherd.

Definition #4: In the Bible, what is comfort?
Comfort is consolation: and this is a strong term. Psalm 119:50, “My comfort in my suffering is this: / Your promise preserves my life.” Isa 40:1 “Comfort, comfort my people / says your God / Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, / and proclaim to her / that her hard service has been completed / that her sin has been paid for, / that she has received from the Lord’s hand / double for all her sins.” 2 Cor 1:3-4 “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.”

    These scriptures describe the kind of comfort that churches ought to be providing. “Come to me, all ye weak and heavy-laden,” says Jesus, and we ought to welcome them on His behalf. And we have to do it often enough that the word gets out that the church is in the consolation business. If you’ve learned that you have cancer, is church the place you’d come? If you feel guilty for taking kickbacks from a company you deal with, is church the place you’d come? If your daughter is pregnant out of wedlock? If your son made his girlfriend pregnant out of wedlock? If your spouse is cheating on you? If your parent has Alzheimer’s? Is church the place you’d come? When the church gets into the serious business of comforting, people will come. That is the sense in which a church should be a Comfort Zone.

    In the Bible, comfort is not “consumerism.” It is not the wimpy idolatry of one’s own preference. So I’m impatient when our churches huddle in their comfort zones. I’m unhappy with the way we seem to have rewritten Acts 17:10 — “Now the Bereans were more noble than the Thessalonians, for they examined the scriptures daily to see whether they could be comfortable with the things Paul had said.” When we do search the scriptures, we find that actually it’s a dangerous thing to be “at ease in Zion.”

    I can’t find examples in the New Testament of people being uncomfortable with the gospel. Enraged, yes. Furious, confused, threatened, scandalized, and homicidal because of the gospel, but never just uncomfortable. And I don’t find any promises to Christians that they will be comfortable. Comforted, yes. Christians are promised joy, peace that surpasses understanding, the comfort of the Holy Spirit, the companionship of Jesus, and a place in heaven. But they’re never told that they’ll be comfortable. In fact, they’re warned that the world will hate them.

Conclusion:
We’re ready now to answer the question I’ve implied in the title. How do we minister at the Church of the Comfort Zone, that paradoxical congregation where so many place membership?

    First, we bring them around again and again to scripture, where God sets out his expectations and promises us a spirit of courage that will let us meet them.

    Second, we model courage, we model godly risk-taking, we step out of our own comfort zones because of our love for God.

    Third, we listen carefully to the immature, to the “weaker brother” or sister of Romans 14, and do all we can so that we do not cause them stumble through a violation of conscience.

    Finally, we must remind one another to keep perspective. We remind folks that there is a comfort that is genuine consolation, but there is also a kind of comfort that is apathy and self-love. We point out that there is discomfort that is the voice of conscience, but there is also discomfort that is only a sulking against God.

    In a world that still murders Christians and Satan still prowls looking for God’s people to devour, we must not let preferences, habits, and trivialities divide us from other Christians or distract us from the urgent work of the Kingdom, especially if our only reason is that we are merely uncomfortable.

© 2001, Dr. Chris Willerton. Used by permission.

Title: "Ministering at the Church of the Comfort Zone"
Author: Dr. Chris Willerton
Publication Date: August 17, 2001

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