Youth Ministries need warning labels. I’m serious. And these warning labels shouldn’t be like the auctioneer speed-talking heard at the end of cholesterol-reducing commercials that promise that you can eat ribs and still lose weight, or the fine print on leasing the car of your dreams that you can’t afford. It should be right in the middle, in plain sight for everyone to see and understand that the gospel we’re attempting to live into will mess everyone up.
For parents…
Warning: Sending your child to youth group has the potential of derailing your family’s priorities and will challenge you to articulate your own faith to your kids.
For youth workers…
Warning: Serving in this ministry is essential for your own spiritual formation. You need these students as much as they need you. Doubt, insecurity, struggle, and pain will disorganize your neat life should you dare to enter in.
For students…
Warning: If you participate in this youth group, we’ll show how far the rabbit hole goes.
We have a problem, however. Youth ministries need people to legitimize their existence. As a result, most of our recruiting toward students rides on sound bites of “fun.” Most of our communication with parents comes out of spin-doctor techniques that seek to impress parents in order to pay for our retreats and, let’s be honest, our salaries. Most of our recruiting for youth worker volunteers markets to support-a-child techniques, where “If you just give five hours a week to this child, he will worship you, leave her life of crime, and not end up in hell.” And if you think I’m exaggerating about any of these points, check out the product tables at most youth ministry conferences.
Now, I recognize that the issues I’m pointing out have, in some way, been perpetuated by my own ministry practices. So I’m calling all youth ministry types to own the problem with me. How have we, likely through good intentions, perpetuated a consumeristic culture within our churches and youth ministries?
Is it possible that ministry has conditioned students, parents, families, adults to church shop and use Priceline.com techniques to find the best returns on their giving dollars? Again, if you think this a generalization, simply look at the work of Christian Smith (Souls in Transition) or Tim Clydesdale (The First Year Out) and recognize that most religiously oriented young people who have gone through their adolescent years have adapted an American form of religion that is fueled by consumerism, self-fulfillment, and individualism. It’s a hard question to ask, but could this be the fruit of our labor?
The response to this question isn’t regressing to just preaching the Bible, or talking more about sin and hell. But it isn’t blindly repeating what we’re doing either. Rather, I’ve been inspired by the works of James Fowler and Sharon Daloz Parks to recognize that faith isn’t merely something we possess, get, acquire, gain/lose, or consume.
Faith is something we do. It is something that is dynamically changing as each person learns to navigate her/his connection with self, others, life, and God. It calls for all to be invited to participate within a community where everyone faiths together. One must make time. Value it above other things. Be willing to grow, even to change. All of these are the antithesis of consumerism.
Warning labels must also be placed all over the church too.
Podcasts…
Warning: Thanks for listening to our messages, but it’s only part of the narrative our community proclaims. Only listening to this (without action on your part) will produce spiritual malnutrition.
Pews…
Warning: If you sit here, you will likely be moved down one seat, across the world, or toward someone you don’t know or like.
As Annie Dillard puts it, “It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews” (An Expedition to the Pole).
Straw hats, flip flops, lattes, smart phones, retreat commercials, volunteer guilt trips, fun, convenient downloads. These are not bad things in and of themselves. But might they be symbolic for a consumer-laden faith we’re passing on? If so, what are we willing to do about it?
Maybe we have to reintroduce warning labels to stem consumeristic hegemony in our faith communities. Have more? Please share…
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Ya think? Our culture encourages us to buy, not to borrow. We are encouraged to buy our own rather than sharing something with others. We are encouraged to buy extra because we might run out.
We are trained to consider ourselves and our needs before the needs of others, unless the others happen to be on the other side of the world in a global crisis. Thus, we miss loving our neighbor next door or around the block, and we miss sharing our abundance or receiving the generosity of others.
How quickly we in church land get caught up in the mentality of the mall. We get caught up in spend and consume rather than the basics of the kingdom. Jesus invites us into a different kind of world, where the last shall be first and the least will be greatest. Jesus, and later Paul, invites us to get rid of the stuff that so easily weighs us down. Yet we’ve all seen it, and many of us have gotten sucked into the vortex of money=power=success, or bigger is better.
Bigger churches mean more givers and having bigger youth ministries. Bottoms in chairs equals success and might even get you a raise. In American church land we’ve been encouraged to consume—to find the best teaching, the best music, the best children’s ministry. As a youth pastor the first question I’m asked is, “How big is your group?” rather than, “How solid are your kids in serving the poor?” or, “How are your kids’ prayer lives?” We all know that’s not what God looks at. He doesn’t look at the outward appearance but at the heart. God’s kingdom invites us to give, serve, love, be thankful. And when we serve the least of these, we are actually serving him.
How did everything get to be about the Benjamins? How did church become about money, getting people to give more to the building fund, or even to missions, but not necessarily giving of themselves? We don’t want to actually get our hands dirty. Going downtown is too dangerous. These are excuses we’ve all heard.
In consumer land, we are successful if we have lots of stuff. And so it is in church. In church land we are honored for having more stuff, or if our church parking lots are filled with nice cars and SUVs. The people on the board tend to be the upwardly mobile and part of “the buck stops here” crowd. And just look at many of our church buildings. They have become bigger and better and filled with more choices, from Starbucks or fair-trade coffee and food courts, to WiFi and gyms; some churches are mini malls of activity. In consumer land, we’ve come to expect the best, so we expect our churches to be polished and to provide us with the coolest experiences possible. We expect world-class music, whether it’s from a choir or band. And shouldn’t our band sound at least as good as Crowder? Sadly, this all leads to performances rather than worship, but that’s another post.
We’ve created and become gourmet Christians. We choose churches based on our favorite flavors and our current appetites. We are used to choices in every other area, so when it comes to going to church, we can choose to worship on Saturday night at the mega church up the street because they have the best worship band; we can go to the fill-in-the-blank church on Sunday morning because their pastor is the best Bible teacher; and head off to the local Episcopal church on Sunday night to experience a Taizé or U2 Eucharist service. And we might add a small-group Bible study on Wednesday night because we need more food and fellowship.
As gourmets, we enjoy the flavors of the moment, but then we see only the great meal provided and miss out on the messiness of the preparation and cleanup that are the real life of a church community. As gourmets we don’t necessarily have to commit; we just consume.
Do we need more things? Do we need more to buy? Really? Why is it that selling everything and giving it to the poor seems like a nice idea but way too hard in 2010? Did Jesus really mean it? And as I pack to move, I sure have a lot of coats. What about that “have two coats, give one away” verse?
In consuming too much, we lose sight of being grateful and content with what we already have. We need more things to make us feel safe, current, relevant, and cool. I’m guilty. I like my iPhone a lot. I like to shop at the Gap over Goodwill. I wasn’t trained or encouraged to live simply. I battle having expensive taste with the knowledge that so many have very little. Compared to Warren Buffet, I’m nothing, but compared to 99.9% of the rest of the world, I’m a millionaire.
I admit that I need help. We all need help to get out of consumer land. Can we help ourselves and our church communities get into living in the kingdom? What if we thought smaller rather than bigger, better? What if we started with loving our neighbors next door and sharing our stuff with them—like the lawnmower or a ladder or even a vacuum cleaner? Could we borrow rather than buy the things we need? Especially items we only use once or twice a year? Could we adopt a family all year long, not just at Christmas? What if we started a thankful list, writing down things we’re grateful for and at the end of the week take time to read them all out loud, either on our own or as a family?
What if we encouraged each other to stay in the homes we have, rather than upgrading to larger ones, in order to help someone else who doesn’t have a home or who needs help with home improvements and cannot afford them? We can all spend less, serve more, and be grateful for what we do have, even the small things, and even if it’s not as great as the guys next door.
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There seems to be a lot being said on the consumeristic nature of the church. I read a lot about being less consumeristic, both as an individual and as a church. I hear the more recent call of David Platt, Shane Claiborne, Zach Hunter, and others. I can’t shake the life and message that Mother Teresa gave to us. They all say in different words that our love for God should be manifested in how we respond to the “other” in our lives. Then there’s Jesus, the most compelling voice for us to turn away from the tendency to be consumerist and to love sacrificially.
But I work in a church, and I attend churches every week (including my own) where our goal is to provide comfort. It’s not included in our mission and vision, but it’s inherent in our conversations. We don’t want parking to be bothersome. We can’t have too many bodies in the hallway. We need to call the paper we hold a worship folder (not a bulletin). Our series need to appeal to our audience. The website should have a certain level of immediacy and up-to-date graphic design.
We do these things so people can be connected to the hope found in Christ—and I’d say that most of these things are good. At the same time, we tend a culture where if someone isn’t happy, they simply find a church that makes them happy. I struggle with this. I have struggled in churches, and I’ve left them. I am the consumer culture, and I’m a pastor.
I have more questions than answers. I don’t know how to have meaningful conversations about this, conversations that yield change. I would say that I love to speak justice language, as long as it means I can still have an iPhone, iPod, and YouVersion Bible. As long as we can still have passion-like worship services, AC, and coffee in the foyer. This is me being honest.
Can you tell I’m confused?
My husband and I did our internships in a large Nazarene church in Campinas, Brazil. It was an experience I’ll never forget. Over a thousand people gathered each Sunday. It was a large building with good pastors and good people helping out. But the thing that spoke to me most was how they shared the gospel without a parking lot. They didn’t purchase surrounding buildings to be able to tear them down and create space for cars. They simply expected that the church—if it’s truly the church—would find a way to worship regardless of the amount of land they could acquire. It spoke to this heart, just beginning in ministry, and I’ve wrestled with it ever since.
Nearly three years ago, Pastor Craig Groeschel posted a blog in a series on the future of the church, titled More Missional, Less Consumeristic.
He states,
You might ask, “What is a Consumer-Christian?” In our church, it is the person who “church shops” for a church that meets his needs. Church is all about them. When the church doesn’t work for them anymore, they shop for another one.
He later goes on to share what the church will be like (or should be like):
The future church will be made up of believers who:
• Are sick of living in material comfort while millions starve to death.
• Make money to give more than to consume.
• Believe in the power of prayer and fasting.
• Are willing to suffer for the cause of Christ.
• Will be engaged in missions both locally and internationally.
• See it as their role to lead people to Christ.
• See it as their role to help people in need.
I read things like this knowing that other cases are being made every day to be a kingdom church, not a “me” church.
I want to respond to this “future church” and say with my whole heart that I am a part of it. It’s just taking me some time to figure out how that can happen.
There isn’t much closure for me here. This sacrificial and others-minded life grows up as we walk with Christ, and it infuses purpose in the here and now, even if my current here and now seems a little bit far from the future I hope for. But isn’t that the very essence of our walk with Christ?
Christians should be known for their ability to become. We should be known for the ability to assess our situation in the light of Christ and respond.
Maybe not having an answer is a good answer as long as we are obeying the call of Christ that’s spoken through the Word of God, reinforced in the light of tradition, shared in the body of Christ as we celebrate and pray and reason together with the intellect that God has given to us all. And there’s even room for God to come in and speak to us unexpectedly, to illuminate our understanding with his Holy Spirit. Wow, thank God for the help we have!
The church is consumeristic. But we are also forgiven, growing, becoming, and being sent every day to change and respond to God in our world. Little steps are good steps. Big steps are good steps. Responding to Christ with total abandonment is good. Regardless of where we are, God is there with us, helping us and giving us peace when we don’t have answers.
Lord, I cry out to you as a young pastor who knows little of what you want for the church. My prayer is that you would help us be a church that loves, that will continue to serve those who are far from you as well as those who walk close to you. Help us grow in our knowledge of who you are so we can better understand who we are. Forgive us when our consumer hearts consume us. Replace those desires with your desires and we’ll respond in your strength. Help us think of others in our language, in the use of our time, in our planning, in our spending, and in our giving. We want to be transformed.
Suggested Reading: Freedom of Simplicity (Richard Foster) |
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