"The Forgotten Ways:" Part 3

In last week's post, I discussed the issue of discipleship as discussed by Alan Hirsch in his book, "The Forgotten Ways," and how it applied to my experience and ministry context. This week, I will discuss the problem of consumerism in the church.

Consumerism is prevalent throughout American culture. A person's success is demonstrated by their ability to purchase expensive items and through outsourcing much of the mundane chores of life. Individual Americans have embraced outsourcing as much as our corporations have - we outsource our laundry to Comet Cleaners, our yard-work to a landscape, our cleaning to a maid and our meals to restaurateurs. And those who haven't are more likely to not do so because they cannot afford it than for any altruistic purpose.

Unfortunately, the church is not immune as consumerism also pervades the church.

The issue of consumerism in the church is intimately tied with the attractional church. When the outreach at churches is oriented to be attractional, come and hear the gospel, consumerism is a pitfall. If the emphasis is on attracting rather than on incarnating the gospel, churches are tempted to provide better programs in order to become more attractive. The emphasis becomes on providing better spiritual goods and services in order to attract more people. Rather than creating disciples, the church is creating consumers, and evangelism, incarnating the gospel in the community, is neglected or forgotten.