The Almighty F-150 and Consumer Commitment

We live in a fast food world. In fact, we live in a consumer driven world. Today, no one who produces goods really drives any market. It is the consumer who determines the worth of anything on the planet. Think about it. A car dealership can tell you how much they are charging for a vehicle, but if not one single person on the planet is willing to pay that much money for a car, then is it really worth the price the dealer is asking? If no one buys it or even wants to buy it, isn’t it’s worth exactly ZERO DOLLARS?! Buying a car, just like any other purchase, is about commitment. If I am willing to commit to an F-150, I will do whatever it takes to purchase (consume) that product. If enough people are buying F-150s, then the dealer doesn’t need to change the price. The dealer and the manufacturer both know that they are turning out a product that the general population (at least 6’4” rednecks from Texas like myself) are willing to go get and bring back home and drive around in. On a side note, what is it about an F-150 (by the way, it is called a PICKUP. It’s not a TRUCK! It’s not a PICKUP TRUCK! It’s a PICKUP! Get it straight, people! You get your man card pulled in Texas for foolishness like that!)? Anyway, I’m getting way off of the track here. So we were talking about commitment and consumerism. Christians are no different, really. I wrote a blog post yesterday (or was it the day before…) that talked about spiritual drift. I think that this spiritual drift is linked, in its own way, to a consumer driven church. Now, the consumer mentality of churchgoers isn’t necessarily all bad. It can be very informative for those church staff members astute enough to notice when people stop coming to their church because they will ask the question, “Why is this happening?” Here’s a bottom line in this life: we maintain commitments to products, values, and institutions as long as they fulfill our needs. As long as Ford keeps making a PICKUP that is as cool as the F-150, I will have one. As long as churches fulfill our needs for worship and discipleship, we will attend them. Now that I think about it, I suppose it depends on my needs when it comes to church? Sissies can drive pickups, right? I’M not a sissy, mind you, but you see what I mean. A guy can buy a pickup just for the image that it produces in the minds of other people. A guy can attend church for the same reason. The thing is this: the sissy in a pickup has to get out of the pickup eventually. He has to face the fact that he was unchanged internally by that pickup and find some other way to be changed. He bought the pickup for the wrong reason. The Christian who is attending a church for the looks eventually has to face the fact that he or she is either disciple or he or she is not. They have eventually leave the building. That person is attending a church for the wrong reason. Now, let’s just say that the church is turning out a product here (just as an analogy. I don’t mean to disparage the church or suggest that it’s just about business). Let’s say that the church is meaning to produce the gospel as its product. The goal would be to turn out as many products as possible, right? This particular product (the gospel) gets “bought” by the consumer (the average churchgoer). How do you know that the product is actually sound? In the case of the churchgoer, I would say that the churchgoer either matches the source of the product (the Bible/Jesus) or the churchgoer does not. How does the church consumer determine the worth of the product? Well, it’s by how easy/convenient it is to live out that faith. For some, it is easy to live out faith if there is absolutely no sacrifice or discomfort as a result of living out faith. For others, the ease and convenience of the product is found in knowing that the gospel is being lived out according to the source (the Bible/Jesus). So what’s the difference? The difference is how well the consumer KNOWS the source, in my opinion. Does the average churchgoer KNOW whether or not the gospel being preached in the church matches the source (the Bible/Jesus)? This is exactly why Martin Luther and the printing press were the absolute BANE of the church when they hit the planet in their time! When the common man could actually read the Bible in his own language, he could see for himself what the source said about the gospel. Now, they know what they are committing to! Now they can really decide to go all in for the gospel. In the church today, people will float from church to church looking for the right worship, the right Bible study, and right place for kids and teens, and the right outlet for ministry. They will look for places where they are comfortable and/or they will look for places where they can live out what they think is their best estimation of how the Bible/Jesus says to live life faithfully. The question that I leave this particular train of rambling thought with is this: what is the church presenting as the product? Sound theology or man-made, sissified, watered down, feel good, kumbayah, “let’s all hold hands and hug a tree” theology? People will find a church that meets their needs. Some just want to feel good. Some really want to live well for the gospel. I want to be in a church that produces the accurate gospel and not just feelings and good intentions.