"Consumer or Consumed"

I have a pet peeve with those who work at fast food cash registers. I hate it when I walk up to order and the cashier just stares at me. I hate it when he or she says nothing...no, "Hi, how can I help you? or "May I take your order?" More and more I seem to be meeting cashiers who just stare at me. How am I suppose to know if he or she is ready to take my order? So, I have started staring back. I refuse to guess when they are ready to take my order. If they're ready, they can tell me. Otherwise, I will stare as long as they want. It is now a meter of principle. I can feel my blood pressure rising even as I type.

Why do I feel so strongly about this? I suppose it is because some where along the way I bought into the message that "The customer is always right." So, when the fast food clerk refuses to have the decency to ask for my order I feel he/she has violated my consumer rights.

Ah, yes, consumerism runs thick in my veins. I suppose there is a place for it. After all, we are all consumers. We consume air, food and so forth. However, consumerism is a spiritual growth killer for the individual Follower of Christ and for the Church. What is really frightening is that the consumer mind set is so brought with us into the church that we even say out loud, "We are shopping for a church right now." What? One cannot shop for a church. A church is not something you buy or some place you go, a church, the Church is a people, not a product. Being involved in the life of the church, God's Body on earth, is something that is costly--it costs time, money, talent, energy and more. Church is not something I attend, but something I live. The hour on Sunday, is merely the place to come together as one Body to be sent out to serve and live out the love of Jesus 24/7. Jesus put it this way in Matthew 16:25, "Whoever tries to save his life will lose it, but whoever looses his life for the sake of the gospel gain it." That completely blows my consumer mindset to kingdom come!

I want to thank you for being a church that has always allowed us to not be a consumer driven church. That day we start catering to what church people want, need or prefer, is the day we become ingrown and absorbed in self-preservation. Like it or not, we are who we are at Living Hope. We don't care about how you dress, whetehr or not you spill coffee on the carpet or if you like the music or not.

What makes you an incredible church is that instead of being consumer-driven, you are letting God consume you in a real relationship with Him and others that is transforming you more and more into his likeness because you recognize that to grow we have to be connected, which then fills you up to be poured out to Be the love of Christ to others!

This Saturday is a great example. The total number of sign ups for the Kids Against Hunger Factory are 392! Consumer driven people don't sign up o serve even when 1 person + 2 hours = 1 child fed for 1 year who would otherwise starve to death!