Consumerism: The Air We Breathe

Connect

Hopefully your group has a new face or two along with the familiar faces.  If there are new folks, share the covenant that you made last week together so that everyone is on the same page. 

Spend some time talking together, and then focus in on this discussion together:

This week, Pastor Kevin shared an illustration of a shopping mall as a site of worship.  Think in your life—how did you grow into being a consumer?  With what aspect of consumerism do you struggle?

Pray

You’re encouraged to use the cards again to look at the 5 Measures and their corresponding questions:

Passionate: Where did I see God today?

Accepting: How am I building diverse relationships?

Invitational: Who am I connecting with God’s family?

Trusting: Where does God rank?

Active: How am I engaged with God’s work?

As you think about this week’s topic of consumerism, you might all try to answer the question about how you are doing at Trusting God by asking “Where does God rank?”

Make sure your group prays together.  Try to break off in pairs to pray together, and then one of the facilitators can close the time.

Reflect

Invite your group to read Ecclesiastes 5:8-13 as a group. 

-Have your group share reflections on particular verses within this Ecclesiastes text. 

After you have studied this passage together, I invite you to watch the following video, which is James K.A. Smith reflecting on the shopping mall.  

Smith stated: “How does someone become a consumer? They’ve been immersed in the rituals of the mall; they’ve been hooked by the evangelistic stories of marketing.”

-How have you been hooked by the evangelistic stories of marketing?

Smith encourages all of us to take a “liturgical audit” of our lives—he invites us to look at our everyday lives—about things that we just assume, like the shopping mall, or going to a football game, or even how we use our smartphones, and ask questions about what these practices make us want. 

In his analysis of the shopping mall, Smith shares 4 ways that the “liturgy of the mall” shapes us:

1. I’m broken, therefore I shop.

“But usually the liturgies of the mall and market inscribe in us a sense that something’s wrong with us, that something’s broken, by holding up for us the ideals of which we fall short” (48).

2. I shop with others.

“Subtly…we’ve construed our relationships largely in terms of competition—against one another and against the icons of the ideal that have been painted for us.  In the process, we have also objectified others: we have turned them into artifacts for observation and evaluation….We have to unlearn the habits of consumerism in order to learn how to be friends” (50).

3. I shop (and shop and shop…), therefore I am.

“…when the shopping excursion is over and all the bags are brought into the house as the spoils of our adventure, we find that we’ve come back to the same old ‘real world’ we left.  The thrill of the shopping experience is over and we now have to do our homework, cut the grass, and wash the dishes...And while the new product has a glitz and fascination about it for a little while, we know…that the dazzle fades pretty quickly” (51).

4. Don’t ask, don’t tell.

“…they don’t want us to ask, ‘Where does all this stuff come from?’…This invisibility is not accidental; it is necessary in order for us not to see that this way of life is unsustainable and selfishly lives off the backs of those in the majority world…The mall’s liturgy fosters habits and practices that are unjust, so it does everything it can to prevent us from asking such questions. Don’t ask, don’t tell; just consume” (53).

Some questions to ponder as a group:

-Are there ways that you find yourself involved in this “liturgy of consumerism” and you didn’t realize it?

-What practical ways can we try to not be consumed by consumerism?

-What other areas of your life may need a “liturgical audit?”