Growing from Self to God (Phil's Blog)

As you may have already guessed, it has been some time since my last post. Due to an enormously busy semester, I have found that my time to write was often limited to writing papers and working on my dissertation. I hope you can forgive me. I have been asked to share my notes from this last weeks sermon on "Fast Food Christianity and The Club of Christ." You can listen to the sermon by CLICKING HERE. The notes to the sermon are below. I hope you find these thoughts as challenging as I have found them.

FAST FOOD CHRISTIANITY

Why do we choose fast food?

·      Replaces our responsibility. Fast food replaces our responsibility to prepare and cook our meal. Instead, when we don’t feel like cooking, we jump in the car and head to the nearest fast food restaurant. We don’t have to work; someone else can do it for us.

·      Cheap. Fast food is not going to cost us a lot unless we want extra and are willing to pay for it. Yet, even with adding on the extras, fast food is typically not costly.

·      Choices. With fast food, we can choose from a number of different options to suit our immediate needs and desires. The choice is ours. From choosing the restaurant to choosing the menu items.

·      Service with no strings attached. With fast food, not only do we get what we want, we are also served by others with little to no contact. We are not required to form any lasting relationships. We order our food, get served, and move on. If we don’t like the service, we complain to the manager. If we don’t like the food we take it back and ask that it be done over according to our liking.

·      Quick. Fast food typically lives up to its name. We want it now; we get it now. We make our request and expect it promptly.

·      Drive-through service. If we don’t want to go in and have to sit down, we have the option of simply staying in our car, ordering through a microphone, making our payment, picking up our food, and driving off.

Is this similar to our approach to Christ?

What might Fast Food Christianity look like?

·      Replaces our responsibility. Fast food Christianity replaces our responsibility to grow in our relationship with Christ and live our life for Him. Instead, when we don’t feel like doing it ourselves, we jump in the car and head to the nearest church and expect someone else to feed us spiritually. We don’t have to work; someone else can do it for us who’s paid to do it.

·      Cheap. Fast food Christianity is not going to cost us a lot unless we want extra and are willing to pay for it. Yet, even with adding on the extras, fast food Christianity is typically not costly and will only require us to serve, reach out, and give occasionally (if at all). The amount we serve, reach out, and give is up to us and based on how much time and money we are willing to invest in the moment.

·      Choices. With fast food Christianity, we can choose from a number of different options to suit our immediate needs and desires. The choice is ours. From choosing the church to choosing what we will be involved in and how much we will be involved.

·      Service with no strings attached. With fast food Christianity, not only do we get what we want, we are also served by others with little to no contact. We are not required to form any lasting relationships. We order off the spiritual menu, get served by those paid to serve (and those few crazy volunteer-types), and move on. If we don’t like the service, we complain to the elders and staff without volunteering to work to make it better. If we don’t like the spiritual food we take it back and ask that it be done over according to our liking.

·      Quick. Fast food Christianity typically lives up to its name. We want it now; we get it now. We make our request to the elders and staff about how and what we would like changed and expect it promptly.

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