 |  Good stewardship of the unending source.
Fall 2002
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The Consumer Trap
Doug Pagitt
October 1, 2002
Everyone is asking the question: "What will we do with these upcoming generations who simply will not give money to the church as their parents did?" It comes with some serious hand wringing. From the tone, you'd think you were on the Titanic's bridge just after that meeting with the iceberg.
It's not an idle question, but my objection is that this seems to be the only question churches ask these days about money and younger people. It leads to rhetoric like "They won't give to institutions, but to causes" or "They are motivated when they see where their money goes." Such insights may help a church stay "mission focused" during a fundraising campaign, but they ignore the real issue, at least as I see it.
Many of the church's younger people are begging for a different relationship with money. That's the real issue. An entire generation, maybe two, are consumed by money and debt and consumerism. They need to see money in a new way, a biblical way; but, because the church is also bogged in consumerism, younger people believe the church is of little value in helping them out of the quagmire.
It can be heard in coffee shops, clubs, classrooms, and certainly at every Ralph Nader and anti-WTO rally: "Consumerism is crushing America" and "There must be more than birth, consumption, and death."
At times it's even more blatant. I was driving through downtown Minneapolis with a 31-year-old advertising executive. We approached a new shopping, hotel, and entertainment complex. "Look at that enormous blight on the landscape," she said. Or in the words of a pastor's son, when I asked if he had been to the Mall of America, "I hate shopping malls and all the consumerism crap that goes with them."
This sentiment is not so much about the stuff sold in these places as it is in the unending call to be consumers of it all. Young people are not against stuff. We have more stuff than any generation before, and we have the bills to prove it.
In our lifetime, debt has become the norm. It's not uncommon for many young adults to have student loans, credit card debt, a cell phone bill, and a big car note and insurance premiums. Many young adults know more about moving their debt between multiple no-interest credit cards than they know about God's view of money.
Yet amid this growing crisis of personal debt, the church wants only to talk about how to motivate people to give more.
Consume less than you make
The Bible shows us that God's people are not to be mere consumers. That is the reason for the tithe and the Sabbath. We're to depend on God and trust God to provide. While other nations worked seven days a week, Israel was to work six and trust God for the seventh. While other nations exacted what was owed them with interest, Israel was to practice a year of the jubilee, when debts were forgiven.
There is certainly need for this story today, and for the church to be a peculiar people living according to a different economy, people who give and rest and do not see their lives simply as a means of consumption.
Jesus' model prayer, "Give us this day our daily bread," implies that God's people are to trust God for our provision rather than ourselves. Jesus' teaching was as counter-cultural in his day as it is in ours. There was every bit as much temptation to keep more than enough for oneself and to depend on one's own effort in a.d. 30 as today. We are to intentionally have less than we can consume.
It was in the back of a bus in Guatemala, sitting with six people from Solomon's Porch, that it became clear to me. All of us were under age 35 (most under 28), and all of us quite versed in debt management and living off of "just barely enough." Here we were, in a terribly poor part of a poor country, building houses for the poorest people, talking about how hard it is to live on what we all make.
We were college graduates, and teachers, and building contractors, and we concluded that we didn't make enough money. I began to see it clearly: we were all stuck in a consumerist mindset. Our coffee shop and restaurant expenses alone would build housing for the people of this village, if we simply lived on less.
Is there hope for people who have been taught to clean their plates? Yes, in the call we have as Christians to give a percentage of all we have to God. Our tithing is not for the sake of the tithe or facilities, but for the kingdom.
For that cause, I am willing to confront the person who says he can't give, but who has a car, a cable subscription, and thousands of dollars in credit card debt with the need for a new attitude toward money. Once you start tithing, you soon realize you can live off 90 percent. It's really a shift in thinking: if I have a dollar, I don't have to spend 100 pennies. I can spend 90, and that's still a lot.
What about those who are in debt, for whom tithing would put them deeper in debt? We need to help free them from debt so they can give and serve as God leads.
At Solomon's Porch we're seeking to create a debt-free house. People in debt can live in this church-owned apartment building for one year, rent-free, under these conditions: that they increase their earning, limit their spending, and make a plan to live within a budget for three years.
Most residents can pay off at least $6,000 in debt in that year. While this is a slow process, few things would be better for our community than having six people per year move from indebtedness to "un-debtedness."
Thus our community begins the process of being free to what God might have for us.
No church "service" fees
One of the reasons churches in North America have trouble guiding people about money is that the church's economy is built on consumerism. If churches see themselves as suppliers of religious goods and services and their congregants as consumers, then offerings are "payment."
I am reluctant to call our worship gatherings a "service," because the word has lost its original meaning. It once meant that people gathered in service to God. Now worshipers consider themselves recipients of a religious service. Sermons and childcare are provided and a fee is appropriate for services rendered.
I don't care to be obligated to that contract.
Instead, the motivation to give is because we're in community. Each of us should pay our part of the community—the lights and air conditioning and perhaps certain salaries—but not because of what we receive. It's for the mutual participation in the community.
With those who are in covenant relationship with us (more than occasional Sunday attenders), we are clear. We are all responsible for our church community. We are responsible to give time and energy, dreams and ideas, and money. Putting in time isn't a substitute for giving money, any more than money is a substitute for participation.
Even for those who tithe, there may be the attitude that they pay the church just as they pay for the car or the health club. Giving to the church is part of being a holistic community, not just paying for services.
Is church itself a consumer?
"Doing church" today costs more than ever. Like expanding government, the spending habits of churches are escalating. The increase of staff, buildings, and programs has put many churches on an unsustainable path. They find themselves requiring more resources to perpetuate the ministry. And more money spent doesn't always equal effectiveness of ministry.
The essential relationship between the church and its members has shifted: churches have become consumers of givers' money rather than conduits for supporting ministry.
One of the beautiful things about our community is the desire to be thrifty. If you visit Solomon's Porch, you might think it's a used-sofa showroom. Our worship space is in the loft of a brick warehouse in an older section of town. Our furniture is donated couches, easy chairs, and café tables.
We are aware that our church is funded by kingdom money. All we save in our operation beyond basic salaries and utilities can go to kingdom work. In a strange way we communicate the gospel of rebirth and reuse every Sunday just by being thrifty.
At times we make significant expenditures—we recently relocated from smaller quarters across town, and the new worship space required additional video projectors and sound equipment—but we made clear we placed a high value on value, we model a thrifty lifestyle, and we do not view worship attenders as sources of income.
Churches have had trouble with money from the beginning. The apostle Paul said he didn't want to ask for too much money. James reiterates Jesus' teachings on not favoring the rich. The Middle Ages' greed-stained indulgences speak for themselves.
Even with this history, I'm convinced we face our greatest challenge in speaking to emerging generations on money. Let's make sure we ask the right question.
Doug Pagitt will be a featured speaker at the National Pastors Convention in San Diego, February 26-March 1, 2003.
Doug Pagitt is pastor of Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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