Consumers of What?

Nobody has to labor to prove it, we know it.  We are all consumers.  We constantly find ourselves consuming our favorite foods, our favorite shows and movies, and time with our favorite people.  Of course the world around us knows we are consumers and we feed their desire to acquire more money so they can consume as they will, when we consume what they place before us.  

But something troubles me.  Something that has been happening for sometime in the church.  The church has bought the lie that we need to appeal to the consumerism among us and go to all lengths to get people to attend at which time then we might impact their lives with our message.  I'd expect this philosophy from the world, but not of the church.  Yes, our intention is every bit on par, namely to make Christ known.  But our failure is in having way too many things up in the faces of these who consume what we place in front of them such that their sight of Christ is obstructed.  They see but a part of Christ (if they see any part at all) and while they might be intrigued by His seeming glories, they are not sure what to do with Him.  And so again they continue to consume with more readiness, in increasing measure, all the peripheral things we've put before them. 

The fact is many churches we walk into any more will say much of what they have, what they do, how to get involved.  You will likely hear more about those throughout the course of the service than of Christ.  When is the last time you walked into a church and someone said, "We have JESUS!"  And when is the last time we even asked the question, "Do they have JESUS here?"  But likely we don't ask such a question.  Maybe that is because our all-consuming propensity is engaged and satisfied, or at least distracted by things so far less than Christ.

My soul, your soul, and every soul out there is hungry and we are all hungry for the same.  We are hungry for Jesus.  I am less convinced that any sort of appeal to "consumers" needs to be done in order to connect with people.  We are already connected with so many people.  Relationships are the antidote for the poison of consumerism.  We will only continue to be consumers, there is no denying that.  But we will not cause people to get close to Christ, neither will we get close to Christ by consuming so many peripheral things.  When we put Christ on display, when He is present in our meetings, in our relationships, in all our efforts, where He becomes the object of our everything, that is when lives will be changed.  So...be sure you are consuming Jesus.  Be sure you are helping others consume Jesus.  He is everything we need and will desire, we just need to better see Him.  Learn to sift through all the things you have regularly consumed that are nothing more than a front door to viewing HIM.