The Impact of Consumerism of Disciple Making Part 1
Everybody welcome back to the practitioners podcast, where we're applying Jesus style disciple-making to everyday life. This episode in all of our episodes are powered by navigators church ministries, which focuses on helping churches, make disciples who can make disciples for more information, or to get connected.
Check out navigators, church ministries.org, Justin random question of the day. Are you ready? I'm ready. Are you a spender or a saver? Oh, I'm a saver for sure. I've always been that way. yeah, it's, it's not easy for me to spend money. I liked I'd rather. Rather save it unless I really need something. Is your wife a saver as well?
She is. So that works out really well. So you guys have lots of money, the gravity, that would be a wrong conclusion. How about you, your savers bender. We have to ask, do we write like, yeah, I need that. If I have it, I want to spend it. And actually my wife is a spender too. And so, the real challenge there is that sometime.
we spend lots of money, so the numbers are broken, but we have a good theology around money and that helps a ton. And that's actually a little bit about what we're going to talk about today is this idea of consumerism. And this is a multi week. Series that we're doing on consumerism. And so today, unlike what we normally do, we're going to do a little bit of a long intro to make sure that everyone has a similar language.
Common language creates common movement, a similar language around consumerism. So I'm hoping that you can introduce the idea for us and share a little bit about why this is such an important topic for us to talk about on the podcast. Absolutely. So I'm going to, I'm going to share a little bit set up.
Not only this episode. the next few episodes with where we're going, because we think this is a really important topic and it really impacts us in deep ways and the church and disciple-making in deep ways. And we often don't think about it or talk about it. So, I'm going to set us up here. So we are recording this and, Tony's office right now.
We're in downtown Dayton. Not far from where a national cash register began NCR. And if you're anyone that's been around date and you know, that that started here and has a deep history, in that, it was around the turn of the century 1900, where that began. And there was a guy that worked there and his name was Charles Kettering.
You've probably heard the Kettering Sloan foundation that goes back to him, but he was a famous American inventor. and every day that he walked in to NCR from 1904 to 1909, he saw this sign on the wall. The sign said we cannot afford to have a single dissatisfied customer. And so that was part of the ethos, not only of NCR, but also of, businesses all over the country at this time, that they were trying to satisfy their customers.
Now, it wasn't long after that, that the us was drawn into world war one and the U S hired a man named Edward Bernays and Edward Bernays was hired by the government to build up support for the war. So. You know, your everyday citizen would be supportive of what the U S was trying to do in world war one.
Now, Edward Bernays, a lot of us probably haven't heard that name, was the nephew of a man named Sigmund Freud. And we do know that name right then that's a big name in our culture and throughout history. And. The work that Bernays started to do Sigmund Freud termed at psychological warfare. And so Bernays, he worked for the government, the committee on public information, and his goal was to drive attitudes towards.
The war effort in support of it. And he described it this way in his book, Edward Bernays did, and the book was called propaganda and he says this. He says, what he did was the conscious and intelligent manipulation. Of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.
Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is the true, true ruling power of the. Okay. So that's a mouthful, right? And I get that. That's a mouthful, but what Bernays is talking about here is culture. How, how is he going to build culture and infiltrate the culture with ideas and psychological, warfare.
Sigmund Freud talked about it. How is he going to do that in such a way to move people in certain directions with where they will support certain things? Okay. So that chain, there was a change in strategy and Bernays is often called the father of modern day con consumption or consumerism. And consumerism really is a.
It is this movement away from, keeping the customer satisfied to keeping the customer dissatisfied. It's moving, people from being citizens where they have enough and they're happy and pleased to moving them to where they can never have enough. And that is perhaps the most common, Or the best way to sum up what Bernays did.
Okay. So we're talking about all of this, of what, what did that do to our culture to move it from where it was to where we are today and where we are today is probably the. Biggest most, consumption, oriented culture in the history of the world, is a way that we could sum up American culture right now.
Now I referenced that sign that Charles Kettering walked in and saw from 1904 to 1909. we can't afford to have even a single dissatisfied customer in 1929. that same man Charles kept Kettering. He wrote an article called keep the customer dissatisfied. And one quote from that article said this. I said the only reason for research.
Is to keep your customers reasonably dissatisfied with what they already have. And later on it says, if everyone were satisfied, no one would buy the new things because no one would want it. And so there is a conscious shift. Again, I hope I'm painting this well for you guys that there's a conscious shift in America.
to this idea of consumerism and of keeping us dissatisfied so that we will buy more, want more, need more. And there's a shift for us from becoming citizens, responsible stewards, caretakers of what we have to consumers. Needing more, always looking for the next thing. And I wanted to find consumer for us for this series, as this a consumer is someone who has surrendered to other people or to institutions, the power to provide what is essential for a satisfied life.
I'm going to say that again, a consumer is someone who has surrendered to other people or to institutions. The power to provide what is essential for a satisfied life. And so with that definition, consumers, really implicitly or explicitly believe that their satisfaction is for. That they need something outside themselves and they can find it within the culture to become satisfied with that.
They have to believe in two lies. And when I say lies, I mean, it contradicts what scripture teaches the first lie is that, they believe that they don't have, or we don't have as consumers to belief that we don't have what we need for like. You say, God tells us in second, Peter one, three and four, that he has given us everything we need for life and godliness, but a consumer doesn't really believe that at a heart level or in the way that they live.
Instead, they're looking around for that next thing to provide a hit of dopamine or whatever that they need to buy. That makes him feel better. That brings happiness or fullness of life. to their existence here on new years. So that's the first lie. They believe they don't have what they need for life.
The second lie is the belief that consumers can get full life from what man can provide to them, not from Jesus. And so the belief that full life comes from what man can provide. Not from Christ. And so one of the most dangerous results in what we're honing in on, today in our episode is this belief that satisfaction can be purchased.
And what it does for consumers is it elevates money to the top. And so instead of Jesus being at the top, it is per the pursuit of money because money can solve your problems because in a consumeristic society, Whatever your problem is, if you have enough money, you can buy some, buy some product or some person to come and solve that problem for you.
Right? So another way of, of saying that is if you only had more money, then you could have more. You could have more education, you could have more products. And so if you realize, oh, I just have too much time and I don't have time to clean my house. And it's a wreck all the time and it's causing problems in my family.
Well, if you had enough money and you chose to spend it that way, you could hire a maid to come in and clean your house. And so if you think about the problems and stresses that, that you carry around, There's probably a way that if you had the money, you could get somebody to solve that problem for you.
But consumers think that way. But what the scriptures tell us is that we already have enough. We have what we need for life and godliness. And so maybe those problems are coming from within and not from without, and so satisfaction. Can be purchased is what consumerism teaches us. And it's what it drives us to believe in hammers and into us.
So, Tony, at this point, I'm going to, I'm going to stop kind of the intro and let's just dialogue over that. And maybe what are the problems that might, might come up. For churches or pastors or disciple makers, if we believe that we, that consumerism is true, right. Satisfaction can be purchased. What are the implications as just begin to interact?
Yeah. As I was listening to kind of the intro, one of the things that that really struck me is that if, if consumerism is true, right, if we can purchase. Satisfaction then what it does is it leads us as leaders to believe that the next program, the next thing can do whatever we need it to do in order to fix whatever ails the problems in our, our church culture.
Right. And I think we saw this in the nineties and the early two thousands. This is the attractional church model. And while there, there are certainly God has redeemed a ton of things in the model, and there's some benefits that happened along the way. We can't say that what we've done is created generations of Christ followers.
Instead, what we can say is, you know, and this is the problem with consumerism is that you get exactly what you can Sue. And so if you're teaching people to consume. Church. Then what we have is a bunch of people who go to church. But don't know how to follow Jesus. Yeah. They're there at the church. A lot of people are at church to consume, right.
They have a need, they have something and they think, well, I just need to go here because these people will help me solve it. And yeah, I had to put some money in the plate or whatever. They're, they're compelled to do that because there's an exchange of goods. A lot of people feel. What you said Tony, about the curriculum and programs.
I mean, you and I have been in enough churches and help him, pastors, we have seen over and over again that when there's a problem in the church, one of the first responses from church leaders and others, cause they don't know where to turn is well, is there a curriculum. Is there a program? Is there something I can buy or acquire?
What book do I need to buy? That's right. Book, do I need to buy to fix this problem? And so then they try to get that and they employ it into the church and they roll it out. And then there's some initial momentum and it hit. And then over the period of months, or sometimes years, then that momentum begins to wane and they're right back in that same place.
And then they turn around again and say, well, I, that one didn't work. What's the next one. Yeah. And I think that that many of us have, have become. Kind of a knee jerk reaction and, and, and almost trained by consumerism in many regards, I want to, one of the difficult things is, is that in disciple-making we can really begin to think about, consumerism because we want to serve, you know, we, we want to be the person that, that sir.
The person that we're discipling. And yet what we see in Jesus is not consumeristic disciple-making, but it's a, it's a messy kind of long relational, intentional process that brings someone in. And it's not about satisfaction, the way that, that you wanted. It's about the fullness of life with Christ, the way God designed it.
Hmm. Yeah. I like how you said that, then there's this idea. That we should be satisfied. And for us being, living in this culture, nobody's immune, right. It's culture is immerses us the way that water immerses fish. Right. And we're often just as aware of it as fish are in the water, but we are all impacted by it.
And so this idea of satisfaction, like. I mean, I know I do. I naturally think of like comfort, right? Just being comfortable and things being easy, et cetera, et cetera. When you look at the life of Jesus and the life of his disciples, that was not what characterized their lives. Right. And so Jesus even said, the son of man has no place to lay his head.
And so, there's these ideas of, well, what does satisfaction really? What does a full life really look like? Are we buying into our culture's view of a full, satisfied life, or are we wrestling with what Jesus offers and you know, more of the internal satisfaction, the fullness, the joy, but yet externally, still lots of problems.
Lots of problems. so Tony, as you think about. Disciple makers. how have you seen consumerism impact disciple makers or maybe their disciples that they're working with? Yeah, I, I, I would think, I think one of the things that I see it happen the most in is it impacts the depth of the relationship.
Hey, I'm coming to a meeting. I'm showing up for the meeting. I expect you to give me something in the meeting. And when I walk away, I want to feel like the meeting has been completed. Right. And it's, it's almost like a checklist approach to disciple-making, but it's also like, Hey, your, and this was happened quite a bit when I was the pastor.
Right. you're my pastor. I'm your sheep. Tell me what to do to be closer to Jesus and. I want you to give it to me on terms that I'm okay with. Right. And so, you know, when, when you tell somebody to give up their politics or to give up their, you know, and insert idol here, right. We all have them then, that becomes kind of like, well, I don't know if I want to do that.
And that's where consumerism really has infiltrated disciple-making I think on a, on a pretty regular basis. And, and it, it makes it feel transactional rather than relational. Yeah. And if it's not relational, it doesn't penetrate. Right. It becomes just that transactional thing that sometimes, you know, I have seen and been on both sides of where if you know, I remember one time I was being discipled and I just didn't feel like I was getting anything out of it.
And I was ready to throw the whole thing away because to me, I, I was there to get something. Right. It wasn't like I had to purchase it in this case, but what I was giving in exchange for it was my time and my effort. And if I wasn't getting something back, I was really ready to just throw it out. And that comes, I mean, that way of thinking, you know, I think has been deeply influenced in me by the throwaway culture that we live in.
Of being dissatisfied. Well, if this thing doesn't work for me, I'll go find something that does. And there's just that consumeristic mindset instead of the relational, right. Where Jesus tells us to love one another. Right. I wasn't seeking to love that person that was loving me. I mean, really giving of himself and trying to invest in me.
I just wanted what I wanted from it, you know? And we're going to get into this. For the next several weeks. So we're not going to cover it all today, but the truth is, is that it really does affect our ability to receive the gifts that God has for us. Right. The gifts of the spirit, the gift of grace, right.
And in a consumeristic culture, grace is not a real thing, you know? And so the fullness of life, if we're going to call Jesus, Lord is almost the opposite. Of consumerism. And so I'm really excited to jump into all of that as we dive a little bit more into this topic. as we begin to wrap this up, any closing thoughts on this topic, Justin?
Yeah. I just think it's, it's important. And if you are interested in a deeper dive. into consumerism and disciple-making come back next time. Obviously the next few episodes, we're going to be into this, but there's a lot of history out there. And so just a little bit of Google searching, but put your antenna up.
especially coming out of the Christmas season, the holiday season, you might start to feel, you know, a low sense or, you know, the high that you got from all those new things might start to wear off, or wouldn't you get that first credit card bill. Exactly. And so, you know, pay attention to what's going on in your heart and interact with God over that, because he has something to say to you.
and to me about where is satisfaction found and do we already have what we need, or is there more out there that we gotta go buy or discover or purchase, you know, God has told us again, he's given us everything we need for life and godliness, Tony. What's our takeaway. What's our action step this week.
the takeaway this week, consumerism has fooled the church into believing that success is more important than righteousness. Consumerism has folded the church into believing that success is more important than righteousness. The action step reflect on your own consumerism and repent in the areas where you may have.
Reflect on your own consumerism and repent in the areas where you may lack friends. We're so excited to be on this journey with you to talk about consumerism, to get convicted together, to make sure you don't miss any future episodes. Hit that subscribe button wherever you listen to podcasts. Also leave a rating or review on iTunes.
And Hey, share this episode with a friend, maybe an accountability partner who can walk with you through the journey of consumerism.