Do We Have Practicing Faith Or Plasticy Faith?
Sometimes I think the church is just as guilty as marketing experts who create ads to sell products on false promises…
Buy our product and you will be happy, rich, skinny, popular, beautiful, successful, and loved.
Drink our beer and you will get the girl of your dreams and be surrounded by happy friends with great teeth.
Use our lotion and you will look 10 years younger in just 5 weeks.
Spray yourself with Axe and women will find you irresistible.
Wear our shoes and your butt will shape up.
Drive our car and your life will be exciting.
I think we can agree: rarely are the ads honest.
Speaking of honest advertising, I’m reminded of the 1990 movie Crazy People. Dudley Moore plays a bitter advertising exec who reaches his breaking point and ends up in a mental institution—where, with the help of the other patients, begins to create “honest” advertising…
Buy Volvos. They’re boxy but they’re good.
Your fear of flying may be valid. United Airlines: most of our passengers get there alive.
Metamucil—It helps you go to the toilet. If you don’t use it, you will get cancer and die.
Forget Paris. The French can be annoying. Come to Greece. We’re nicer.
Ya gotta admit, the thought of honest advertising is pretty refreshing and funny.
I don’t like it when Christianity comes across as fake, plasticy, and pimping a product on false promises.
We shouldn’t have to.
Does the greatest Message really need spin to make it sound better?
Does the Good News need a celebrity endorsement to make it significant?
Is the kingdom of God about success, riches, fame, power, and having all your wildest dreams come true?
Does being a Christian make us perfect, struggle-free, and without questions or doubts? Uh, I hope not—because I am none of those things.
When I meet Christians who are (perfect, struggle-free, and without questions or doubts), I see plastic…
Fake.
An ad campaign.
Maybe somebody is buying what they’re selling, but God isn’t. He sees through the Photoshop layers. He knows what we really look like, act like, think like. And He loves us—not the perfect version of us, but the real us. No need for hype or spin. We can stop drinking our own Kool-Aid.
It’s much better for us to have a practicing (work-in-progress) faith than a plasticy (shiny, perfect, fake) faith.
A practicing faith…
One that is growing in honest, heart-felt, and continued trust of God.
I am a husband, father, pastor, leader & reader. I love God, love people & love life.
It’s important for each of us to have our own authentic faith.
By “our own” I mean a faith that has been explored, ripped a part, and rebuilt on a regular basis.
What if we succeed in getting someone to believe we are happy, rich and all that stuff? My guess is that person will be to intimidated too stick around. Kind of like stepping into room and realizing your the only of your ethnic origin in the place.
And rich… hmm better throw out reading James 5 if we over-emphasize the wealth thing.
Totally Scott. Let’s throw out the James 5 thing.
Ha! Kidding.