DC: Dinner Conversations v1.0

Over dinner last night, we began to talk about consumerism and well, "consuming."

How do we consume ethically as believers?

Ron Sider points the way forward when he says that one way to combat the consumeristic society that we dwell in is to avoid buying cheap disposable crap. So when you buy, buy carefully as an investment.

Jethani is not advocating some kind of socialistic divorce from capitalism (for any of you who haven't read The Divine Commodity). He is pushing against the throwaway, live-in-the-moment life that we have mindlessly cultivated as USAmericans. We don't question what we purchase, how we purchase, and we don't realize that the very act of purchasing can sometimes cement consumerism into our souls, eventually effecting the way we see God, friends, even family.

all of life.

We constantly need to fight against this in our lives. Separating ourselves from the more subtle aspects of our culture that we don't think about.

Commodity v Conference

Was watching mega-church pastor talk about the systems in "your" church. Now on the whole, I am very interested in this -- I believe that systems do effect your ministry, and broken systems produce -- gulp -- broken people.

But in the middle of his talk, he made a point about house church/small church people which, seen through the light of the Jethani book, set me off. "People come to me a lot, and I really enjoy talking to them (I don't think you do), and they say, 'We need to get back to the first century church.' (snicker snicker, we ALL know what's coming next) And I say, well ... it's not the first century anymore... besides, the first century church was ILLEGAL."

Wow. Did he just go there? I don't know this guy personally, but I'm pretty sure he's not stupid.

Can he not see the analogy between the Roman Empire and the American/Consumer "Empire"?

I'd put it like this:

+ Perhaps, IF American Christianity was living out its true counter-cultural call, and IF "Consumerism" had legal/political power...

... Christianity in 21st Century USAmerica would be illegal as well.

In addition, his main points were that the systems in "your church" were not getting people into groups, or making "guests" (hate that word) feel welcomed in your building.

But when Jethani references Barna's survey work that indicates that American Christian do not differ statistically from non-believers in areas that we would all consider biblical, I wonder "Who the hell cares if people aren't in groups? IF THE GROUPS AREN'T TURNING PEOPLE INTO CHRIST-FOLLOWERS, IT DOESN'T MATTER."

Systems matter, don't get me wrong. I believe that systems can be baptized for the glory of God, but as usual, a well-meaning pastor is championing fixing something that may not be working. Maybe like a cassette tape factory that is investing in repairing its magnets and tape spools when people are already moving beyond CDs...

What is going to produce Christ-followers? The disciplines, one-on-one mentoring, spiritual "parents", close community...