feeding the machine

sometimes i like American capitalism - i just don't write those times down so i can't really qualify why i like it right now.

rather, i'm a little distracted by how much i dislike it.

for instance, KJ and i were part of a presentation last week that was a strange amalgamation of capitalist sales pitch/charismatic worship service. when one mixes the Church and sales, it's like a simile that i can't articulate. something dirty, muddy, sloppy, staining...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

i just wrote a whole post regarding this particular event, but i am realizing that my attitude is a little bit TOO cynical... so rather than bust on this odd mixture of Church and economy, i'll scratch that and reflect on some of the deeper issues.

- cultural Christianity
our nearest and dearest enemy in this part of the United States. Our Christian Education is crippled by the in-bred "Christianity" that pervades our good Southern culture. To clarify, i'm proud to be a native Southerner, born in VA and raised in NC, and the Southern culture in general is not the target of my critique - rather, the cultural Christianity that blinds persons to the true depth and passion and power of the good news of Jesus Christ' death and resurrection. The most unfortunate casualty tends to be the rural pastors - they are inundated with traditional, established, 'understood' theology, and the educational process is stifled. once a parishioner can speak the language and keep all the rules, they are a Christian. sadly, some of these truths were illustrated in conversations had recently, and the nature of the presentation we were sitting through last week.

- Christian use of of media
church marketing sucks. that actually happens to be a website, as well - just add the .com at the end. i really appreciate this site, in just my few times engaging the content to be found there. They accurately point out the church's misuse of media, in most of its forms. Sure, we can speak audibly from a pulpit, but other than that the Church seems to suffer - from recording and distributing this spoken word to printing attractive materials to maintaining a vibrant, informative website - we really drop the ball. i'm thankful that at GCC we have a design professor, a professional graphic designer, and lots of picky people to keep the staff and Elders on our toes regarding our printed image and our website - and i'm thankful for their help! however, in our community, i think we tend the be the exception that proves the rule.

- the death of the newspaper
this is a slow-coming, yet imminent, demise. news stories, blogs and internet content that can be accessed on phones, iPods, computers, remote screens, televisions, and more will continue to cut into the 'profits' of printed media. There is something unique about reading a paper, and there are certainly established demographics for the continued use of the newspaper and associated newsmagazines, but with the increasing awareness of waste (tabloids, anyone?) and the proliferation of the digital media, it's only a matter of time. With that said, why should a church fork out any sizable sum of money to purchase an advertisement? i'd rather personally invite someone to join us at church than print an impersonal ad, and i'd MUCH rather the BURDEN of invitation rest on the believers than be displaced onto a printed or web presence.



i have been writing this during a very interesting Trinity class, incidentally, so i'll probably have to blog about my Trinity thoughts later this week... here's hoping, anyway...