Consumerism & The Church

Welcome to the Uncut Podcast. I'm Pastor Luke. I'm Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut Podcast

where we talk about faith, life, and the Bible, ministry, and have some uncut conversations

surrounding that. This morning we're sitting down to have, I guess, a conversation that probably

both of us feel somewhat passionate about, if I had to guess, but kind of this,

the theme of consumerism in, like, faith or in Christianity is kind of at least the topic that,

we've said we would sit down to talk about. So we didn't really set any parameters on that,

but did you have any idea of where we wanted to start with that topic?

I didn't I was hoping that you had some idea where you wanted to start on that.

But I do think like, you know, I mean, I guess maybe taking a little bit of like what do we mean by,

consumerism inside of,

Christianity and faith like because you might be familiar of consumerism and you might just think oh, well, that's like Black Friday,

or you know, the idea of just going out consuming, consumerism belongs in commercials

and the products you buy or the influencers who are influencing you to buy the latest TikTok trend.

But consumerism can have like a, can have a, it can bleed into the way that we live all of our life,

including how we practice faith.

How would you kind of explain what consumerism looks like inside of faith?

Well, I mean, not too different than, like I think if you want to back up into what consumerism is,

I don't think it ends up being a whole lot different

in a worldly context than it does in the context of the church, you know?

Like if you use the.

The example of black friday or shopping or something like that. I go to a store and I buy,

Something right? I give them something and I get something in return and that is the totality of the.

That is the totality of the relationship right, there's not a um,

I don't necessarily do it out of a sense of like passion for that company,

Sometimes we do, you know, passion for that company or like ownership in the mission of that company or investment in it.

I'm giving A and then I'm receiving B.

And if I don't, I'll make a Yelp review.

Right, and I'm walking away without the necessity of there being any further relationship.

But there's no connection beyond the transaction.

And maybe that's kind of like what I would say that consumerism is.

There's no connection beyond the transaction. Right. An emphasis on what we get out of the relationship.

Right. For, well, for the best deal. Right.

Or what we're owed because of what we give. You know like we give the cashier money. We are owed the product. Yeah, period,

and It's usually not very emotional,

No It's just transactional yeah, right there's a transaction without without any kind of connection.

Like you said that that we tend to talk about consumerism from the standpoint of like the how it might bleed

over into the gray area of materialism and the dangers of materialism, both from a psychological

but also spiritual perspective.

But there's an undercurrent in the Christian church of how consumerism has begun to creep

into a person's relationship with their church or with the community of faith as well.

And if you use the same kind of definition or understanding of consumerism and lay it

over top of a person's relationship with church, there's a transaction without a connection.

It begins to be a lens through which you can see a lot of maybe spiritual health.

Issues that both people and churches have because this is not just an issue that individuals,

Have against the church. This is also a way that churches and their leadership,

Can view their relationship with the congregation that they are responsible for?

Well, like yeah, I was gonna say like one of the most blatant examples I've ever encountered of like,

like consumerism in church.

This was a number of years ago. And in the area, this was back in Ohio where I grew up.

And this was back when like church mailers for like, was like the big way.

Drop shipping. Yeah, drop shipping, you know, a thousand mailers on Easter week.

Easter week, that was exactly it. We got like, I don't know, we got like five.

There was one year we got like seven.

Like it was ridiculous. I don't know if all these churches went to the same conference and somebody talked them into.

Doing those. Anyways, I could talk about mailers. But we got this one particular mailer that to

this day sticks out in my mind, which is, one, good marketing, but two, it sticks out in my mind

for a really bad reason. Hey, any publicity is good publicity. Is that what they say?

I guess. I mean, maybe it guaranteed, though, I would never, ever go to that church.

It was a... I can't exactly remember the phrase, but what they had on the front of it was like.

Do you feel like your church is missing something? Check out our church.

It was something to the... Barf.

It was something to the degree of that, of like, your church lacking? Is your church just

not feeding you? Is your church like... Whatever. And come to our church this Easter and experience,

real presence of Christ and da-da-da-da-da, this utter commodifying of... At that point,

you're not even trying to reach like what we call christers, people who attend church

mostly on Christmas and Easter.

You're not trying to reach people who've like, just maybe haven't been the church in a long time

or are looking for a new church to go to.

Like you're reaching people who are actively involved in a church and are dissatisfied

with their current church experience.

Right, yeah. You're cutting the fence in between your pasture and someone else trying to get the sheep to come through. Flock stealing.

Flock stealing, yeah. talk about an inside pastor term, but that's definitely what that was. I was

like, that's icky, like that is just a like.

You are essentially saying, like, what we are doing at our church is oriented to attract you

and to try and be a better experience, better product, better deal for you than whatever it

is that you're currently... It's like the power companies trying to get you to change power

Companies or something like that, right? Right. Well in that whole,

that whole,

Attitude or thought process or whatever really birthed a whole movement of church leadership in the,

Mmm, I guess late 90 early late 80s early 90s.

Kind of as the Jesus movement which started with the hippies maybe you guys

I don't know we talked about that talked about that a little bit. There's a movie Jesus revolution talks about the beginning of the Jesus,

Movement, but as the Jesus movement which kind of started with the hippies and along with that counterculture cultural movement,

Formalized and kind of took some of the principles and made them into like rules of engagement,

It kind of formalized into this seeker sensitive,

Like,

movement is what it was kind of called, at least in part, like...

Pentecostal. Church growth movement. Church growth.

You know, yeah, seeker-sensitive, you know, kind of pioneered by, and I'm not saying anything

pejorative about their ministries, pioneered by churches like Saddleback out in California

and Willow Creek in Chicago, where there was an extraordinary amount of effort and focus

towards making the church experience.

As attractive as possible to both a believing.

And unbelieving world. Now at the surface, no one would say,

even us here at Conduit, I'm not trying to make the experience unattractive.

I'm not trying to repel people.

But also not orienting the things that we do do towards making sure we at conduit are, for instance,

like more attractive, more glitz, more glam, more polish, more X, Y, or Z than the church up the hill

or the church down the road or the church across town

because as long as we put on a better face,

then people will wanna be here more than they're there.

And that might be true, they might wanna be here more than they're there, but I don't want people here,

because it's more spit and polish.

Well, I think it's easy, and we've talked a little bit,

about church growth and stuff, and we have a lot to say think about all of that. But like, it's easy to look backwards and see now where we are in 2023

and say, oh, look at all the excesses and the weaknesses of some of the extremes of

of seeker-sensitive and church-growth movement,

and be a little bit like, meh, right?

But like, again.

If you were there, right, like you were dealing with, you know, churches, just genuinely saying,

like, how can we reach people? Yeah. Like, how can we, you know, like, how can we,

how can we engage a culture and people group that the church isn't currently engaging?

How can we be all things to all people? Yeah. Right. As far as it is up to me and all of that,

you know, now we see some of the excesses of it. But I also want to just even say that like,

Like, there can be consumerism outside of sort of, you know, the church we've been talking

about so far kind of fits the like, I'm going to go super generic here.

I don't think that there's anything necessarily wrong with Hayes machines and lights, but,

the Hayes machines, the lights, the really like the TED talk formed, like pastor, like

all... It's not a sanctuary, it's a worship center. It has no windows.

It's an auditorium. Right.

Right. The internet video that went around last... Was that Christmas or Easter where they had the,

guy with the... Suspended from the ceiling and the drummer, and they were like... Oh,

I think it was a Christmas production that this church was putting on.

Suspended wire trapeze artist drummer person dress like Jesus dress like.

Don't think he was but it would have when I wouldn't put it past it would have fit.

You know, so we can kind of talk about that more like oh, yeah, that's obviously,

Consumerism. Well, I don't go to a church like that. So I've escaped consumerism. Oh my god.

Like there is definitely a brand of consumerism arguably kind of just a less appealing brand or more,

indie brand, when you go to a church that's like, oh, we we preach directly from the Bible verse by verse. Yeah. And like,

you know, we only listen to these type of pastors or were,

this, like, if anyone's listening, who is like, super reformed, like I'm saying this as somebody who was very, very

reformed at a point like very much in the Young, Restless and

and reformed movement, there is definitely a brand inside of the reformed movement.

Oh my gosh, probably more than any other movement.

Yeah, cause it's like, well, do you read it? There's certain authors you have to read.

Piper. Piper. MacArthur. MacArthur, right? Like, and then you've got to, well, do you read Baxter?

Like, you know, you gotta go to like, back to the Puritans if you're really, you know,

like inside of that young and restless and reformed space. I don't know what that space has transformed into now.

If it's just reformed in general or what, but inside of some of those more conservative,

less flashy, you know, obstinately, like we sing modern hymns, you know, only, right?

That still can be a brand of its own, kind of its own bit of like virtue, like.

Well, yeah, because on the like, consumerism is not, consumerism in the church is not,

funneled into one particular like brand of church.

Or thought process or whatever.

It's a, it remains, it still remains the same whether you're reformed or whether you're Catholic

or whether you're Presbyterian or whether you're Methodist or non-denominational or whatever is that.

What is my primary relationship with the church that I attend?

And what is my expectation.

And what are the expectations of me in relationship to that church. So when we said at the beginning

that this can go both ways, that churches can have a very consumeristic attitude when it comes to

their congregants, and that congregants can have a very consumeristic attitude when it comes to

their church leadership, is to say that a leadership on the church, pastors, leadership teams, elders,

you know, whatever form of leadership is over your church,

can ask very little of their congregants,

in terms of like personal sacrifice and serving.

And like involvement in mission and ministry and ministry and be a very top-heavy leadership.

And the execution of ministry, where, you know...

Leave it to the professionals. Leave it to the professionals type of attitude, yeah.

And then, and what it does is it creates a place,

it creates a place or a community that it becomes very easy to have to give up nothing.

To be there and I Think one of the primary messages of Jesus to the disciples is,

You will have to give up everything to follow me even your very life,

Like I will get I'm going to be giving up my life Those who follow me will also have to give up theirs

Give up their life so that they may gain their life essentially. Yeah, you know,

And when we fail as leaders and I have failed at this when we have failed as leaders to,

rightly and truthfully Communicate that reality Then we create a place where it's easy to just come on a Sunday,

Have an experience,

grab a cup of coffee, shake a few hands, sit in an air conditioned room, sing a few songs,

listening to something that either inspires us or convicts us or challenges us or whatever,

and then leave without being.

Without being, I guess I would say,

without being, I don't wanna say forced, but without being forced to count the cost

of what participation in the community of Jesus

actually requires of us.

Or like another way of saying it is not hearing the call of Christ to pick up the cross.

You know, as I'm kind of like, I'm reminded of, I had a theology professor

who I think one of, probably one of his favorite lectures

that he probably still is giving to this day,

is he loved this lecture where he would pull out all these old, he'd pull out different tracts,

gospel tracts, you know, little pamphlets,

and handouts that people will either hand to people or sometimes just.

Place places for people to find them that explain the gospel. And he loves to pull those out and then

kind of show the theology or the practical theology that some of them encapsulate. And one

of his big things is like, we've commodified the gospel by separating it from Christ Himself.

So, he was all about like, you know, receiving the gift of salvation, right?

Which is not necessarily a bad terminology in itself, but when salvation, he was just

like, we talk about salvation as if it's something that is a thing that we get from Jesus without

getting Jesus himself.

And so he's making all this argument, because like the Bible, and I think he's right in

in this, the Bible and Paul in particular, as much as they talk about salvation, they

talk about being united to Christ more, right? And so, being in Christ, united to Christ,

partaking in Christ, is the primary theological way of understanding salvation. And Christ

is like, and partaking in Christ is more than just, you know, getting something. It's, you know.

Having a relationship, it's being called, being transformed, having a life that we now live as a

result of it, rather than just, oh, I got my fire insurance card. I'm a Christian, I've got my

certified Christian card, I've got whatever, because salvation isn't just getting a thing that like benefits us in some way. It's receiving Christ, and,

Christ is gonna do something in your life, and that's different. And I think

sometimes the way that we've.

Oversimplified the gospel and sometimes maybe led to that. Or I'd be interested in what you,

think about this. Do you feel like a overuse or an overemphasis on felt-need preaching,

has impacted or reinforced this idea of like consumerism inside of the church?

I think it certainly can. Even, I think even when pastors and preachers have the best intentions of

of their preaching, I think that there's a natural desire,

to want to preach towards what you know people in your congregation are experiencing

and how maybe the scripture or life in Christ addresses that or speaks to it.

I think probably there's overcorrections in terms of like the volume of that type of preaching that are unhealthy.

But I wouldn't necessarily say that.

Um, you know the idea of felt need Is Can have like both pejorative con,

Yeah, annotations and also and also in positive, right?

And i'm not i'm not setting up the question to try and knock down because like

I could make my own argument for the inclusion of felt need preaching right but yes, yeah,

um so I do I do think that there there can be a a over-correction towards what do,

which is what I think you're asking or saying is what,

what is gonna be the thing that people want to hear from the pulpit, you know, the topics,

the, yeah, the topic space.

It's usually topical preaching that does it, you know, the topics, the, you know,

people want to hear messages on parenting and marriage and finances and like getting

the most out of your job or something like that.

Like that would be like a, you know, that would be like a really key example of like,

how do you find satisfaction in the five key areas of your life?

Join us for this five week series.

Right, right.

I mean, it's like Christian hacking five different areas of your, you know, of your life.

Is it that the word of God doesn't address those things? No, I mean, it does.

It does. But if I were to take all of the passages of scripture or the volume or intensity on which Jesus taught

on forgiveness versus what he taught on marriage,

then we would say, okay, if we preach in proportion to the witness of scripture,

then we're gonna be teaching a lot on forgiveness and sacrifice and not a whole lot on the relationship,

maybe between husband and wife or the relationship between parents and their kids

or how to balance a budget.

Well, and the funny thing is, and I don't wanna, again, there's certainly someone who could do,

like a sermon series like that.

Finding satisfaction in these five key areas of your life, family, finances, work, da, da, da, da, da.

And you could do that, but if you preach that and the answer isn't somewhat come and die

for each and every single one of those, the preachers misled you.

Because you want to find satisfaction in your family, you need to die to your family.

You want to find satisfaction in your finances, Die to your finances want want to find satisfaction in your work. You need to find a way to die and become like christ in your work,

That's that's not a very like can you imagine?

Sending out the easter flyer That says come learn how to die,

That conduit ministries, I mean actually that would be a flyer I would advocate for because I think that would work,

it might Yeah. But that's the thing about that. I think that's the potential danger of felt need preaching

is like, I'm going to find a need that you feel like, oh, like, yeah, I really wish I could just,

get some clear answers and some help to deal with this situation or this area in my life.

And if we're honest like there's so many things and tips and things that we can kind of like.

You know, we can talk about, but at the end of the day, like, it still becomes like,

die to self, live to Christ. And that's not a very, like, feel-good message.

It would much, you would much be rather, it would be, you would be more happy to come to a church

and say, well, you just like, what you don't know is that God is about to, like, just break through

in your life in this situation, totally fix it supernaturally, totally like just, boom, and like,

that breakthrough's coming, you know, like I can kind of, I can hear it in my head.

But inside of that, there's no call to be like Christ. And I'm speaking to a room full of people,

I don't know that that's true for everyone, right?

Some people are called through experiences that feel like they're Job for extended periods of time.

Like I, you know, like I don't have, I think that leaves people out who just are,

don't experience immediate breakthrough in whatever situation or problem they're facing,

left out to dry a little bit.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I would I would agree. Yeah, I would agree Anyways, apparently I have opinions on that,

Well, I think we both do we definitely both do and.

Again it's it seems like a tricky balance between between do I want people to want to come here,

and make it an attractive place and a welcoming place and a place of hospitality and warmth?

Well, yeah, of course.

Right. You know? And it doesn't mean that we won't ever preach on topics or. We do.

We like. Yeah. We do. You know, we'll do those things. But like, at least our goal is to be as biblically honest

as possible any time we do that.

Right, well, and yeah, to call people to, yeah, to be biblically honest,

to call people to the things that the Bible calls people to, which is, come and die.

Yeah. Yeah, come and die so that you may find life. Yeah, well, you've heard it here, folks.

That's all we've got to say, just come and die. Yeah, come and die so that you may find life

for us to live as Christ and to die as Cain.

Right, my witnesses make his glory more visible. Right.

Like, message of the Christian life. but that's not, that doesn't fit into a very, it's a.

You know, I think what we're pointing out is the irony is that when we take very literally the words

of Christ and we were to put them on a banner and wave... We had like a sign thrower, like one of

those sign flippers, and it just said, come and die here. One of the big like...

The big wobbly... The big wobbly men outside, I don't know what you even call them.

Like, come and die. But that's like, that's, and so that's when, like, that's when marketing the

church and some of that stuff just becomes absolutely laughable is because, like, well,

you can't do that for just any verse. I think I've probably made fun of them here, but like,

Like, you know, and not all of these are bad, like, but there is just that, like, you know,

Bible verses that you couldn't put on a mug.

We should do that. We should make a company out of that.

Let's create an Etsy store about Bible verses that don't belong on t-shirts and mugs.

Let us know in the comments if you'd buy that.

That would be... We're doing it. be written. So many verses. Oh, goodness. That is bringing up a rabbit trail.

That'll be fun. That'll be fun. Yeah, guys, the Bible is not like... If you take the time to read it from cover to cover,

there is some stuff in there.

It is not sterile. It is not sterile. It is like, um...

Of the... There's some children's Bibles, not Bibles written for children, but Bibles that are

maybe an easier translation, but still the full text of the Bible always kind of make me a little

bit laugh a little bit inside, because they have a funny, goofy picture on the outside,

but they still have the full text of Song of Songs inside of them, which is...

Or Old Testament dashing babies upon the rocks. Yeah, that psalm's still in that Bible. There's just a cute lion on the front of the cover.

I know, it's very colorful.

It's very colorful.

Oh yeah, we could talk about the different marketing of Bibles.

Yeah. That's a boy Bible, because it's got a camo on it. Camo, yeah. It's a girl Bible, because it's got a cabbage patch doll on the front of it,

or something stupid like that. Yeah. Well, you didn't change anything else other than the

cover. So talk about consumerism. Yeah. Felt needs.

By the way, we're not like, if you have a Bible that means a lot to you and it's got camel on it, like that's fine. Um, you

know, but you know, by, by a Bible you like, right? Yeah.

So you have anything else to say on the issue? Or? Well, yeah, I guess, I don't know, what is, is there, do we need to clarify any more of

the anecdote?

I mean, we've kind of typified that the Bible does call us to come and die.

Is there anything else that we need to say or nuance to that?

I mean, I don't know what I would say other than our lives are not our own.

Maybe that's a little bit what I said this past Sunday, like that there is a significant trend to find my purpose.

Do we have a purpose? Yeah, we do have a purpose, but it's not our purpose for our lives,

it's God's purpose for our lives.

Our lives are not our own. We do not, you know, we do not belong to ourselves.

We are not the captain of our own ship.

We are not the master of our own souls. And you don't want to be.

Like as much as you think you want your life to orient around you and your needs

and like you wanna have complete control over your life, like to be 100% honest, that's pretty miserable,

at the end of the day.

Well, I mean, like I, when we talk about, when we talk about, you know,

What is the classic definition of sin?

I mean, there's the falling short. Yeah, there's like, most people use the Greek definition, amartia, which means to miss the

mark. Right? I think that to me, while I don't disagree with it, obviously, it feels almost,

like it has too many nuances in like ethics and morality. It just wasn't good enough.

I actually prefer the Latin word for sin in the Vulgate.

It's incurvitis se, sin is incurvitis se, which means to be turned in on oneself.

So to be focused inwardly on me.

And to say like, you don't, like, the thing is that people wanna be focused on themselves.

My life, my plan, my goals, my opinions, my preferences, my thoughts, my relationships, my desires,

my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my.

And we were not created for us.

We were created to bring glory to our creator, to be a reflection of his majesty and his power,

and his honor and his glory. And there's a, you know, like an extraordinarily

prideful response from the world,

that why would I want to serve a God who is so narcissistic that he would just want me to bring him glory.

And my reaction or response to that type of attitude is you're right, it is narcissistic if he's not worth it.

You know, if he is not worthy of the glory, then the desire for the glory is a narcissistic response.

If he is worthy of it, and he is, then there's no narcissism at all.

It reorients our position in the proverbial, in the proverbial eternal hierarchy

as not being worthy of our own glory.

We are not worthy of our own supreme focus on ourselves.

Only God is worthy of the supreme focus. So to be, yeah, turned in on ourselves

is the very definition of sin, where we say no to the pursuit of bringing glory to God,

and yes to the pursuit of bringing glory to ourselves.

Well, that makes me think of the quote by Augustine, our hearts are restless until they find rest in thee. Rest in him, yeah.

And what I always, like thinking about what that restlessness is.

Like leads me to a place of like thinking about, Um, you know, if you've ever hyped something up or, you know, you,

You know, I don't know maybe you bought like a really really expensive ticket to a really six, you know, great,

You know really a concert that you anticipated being really really good and you built it up,

and then you get there and you have a terrible experience and you're like Oh, that was so not worth it

like that was like I or like you know this happens to people when they like, you know go to the movie theater because like, you know, they,

Oh, I bought a paid an extra paid a ticket on top of all the subscriptions for streaming I have,

And then I maybe got some popcorn and I went out and went and saw this movie in the movie theater

I've been so excited for this next movie and whatever,

Franchise it is you're watching and then you're like, oh that was dumb That was the mad and then you get real mad because it didn't meet the expectations,

Or the demands that you were putting on of it. It wasn't worthy.

Another way to put like religious language on that is to say it wasn't worthy of the worship. You were giving it

And the thing is, is when we, like you said, turn in on ourselves, what we end up finding

is that we are not worthy of our own worship.

Exactly, yep.

And that leaves us dissatisfied. Anything, whether that is family, your kids,

your wife, your job, your career, your status, your success, your longevity, your health,

any number of things that you could worship,

that you could put all of your energy, time, meaning, value, significance, and identity into.

You go and pursue those things. Ultimately, at the end of the road,

you will find that it's all meaningless.

Read Ecclesiastes, it's all meaningless. All things have their time under the sun,

but it's all the same, and it's all meaningless.

And you find that it's not worth your life spent out for those things.

But when we turn to Christ, when we turn to God, we find rest in him.

We finally find that like, oh, we have found a place, found a person, we found God who is actually worth,

all of the things that I could spend out on him and I won't be left dissatisfied at the end of it.

That's how I talk about it.

Period, at the end of the sentence, yeah.

Yeah, the heart of consumerism may be self-worship. Yeah. Oh, totally. Yeah.

Anything else? No, that's it. That's it. That's it. We better end it right now,

Okay, well, thanks everyone for listening or watching again as,

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