By: Ashley Goad on March 6, 2014
While reading through Vincent Miller’s Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture and William Cavanaugh’s Being Consumed: Economics and Christian Desire, one image continually popped into my head: Don Draper. Don Draper, played by the dapper Jon Hamm, is the central character on the American Movie Channel series Mad Men. The series…
By: Sandy Bils on March 6, 2014
Lets make a game? Ok? I’ll tell you a story about a company and you have to guess, which company I was talking about. Ok? Go: I am talking about a large and global company, with stores in 117 countries. The company was founded in the 50’s and already in 1978 it approved a policy…
By: David Toth on March 6, 2014
“Describe in your own words the picture that best represents the process facilitated by your church/ministry that helps an interested follower to become more Christ-like.” I have asked this question of hundreds of ministry leaders, mostly lead pastors, and easily more than 95% do not include focused and/or regular times of reflective contemplation. If Forrester…
By: Deve Persad on March 6, 2014
Watching the Oscars last weekend I was struck by the number of commercials for Cadillacs. I’m not usually that perceptive, but I wondered aloud, “Why are they showing all these commercials? How many people watching the Oscars would be thinking, I need a car, and that seals it, I’m buying a Cadillac?” Then returning to…
By: Garrick Roegner on March 6, 2014
In 2005 we moved to Spain with our 1 year old daughter and a team of 4 Americans, 1 Mexican, and 1 Spaniard to do campus ministry. We were sent as Short Term Internationals, even though we were planning on staying long term. The idea was to go for two years as short termers, try…
By: Richard Rhoads on March 6, 2014
As we feel ourselves going under, drowning in the impossible multiplication of activities, responsibilities, relationships, and requirements, we end up all but abandoning the pursuit of happiness. Our new goal isn’t so much gentle, authentic happiness, nor are we apparently seeking joy, ease, pleasure or delight. Instead, when I ask people how they are, what…
By: Fred Fay on March 6, 2014
Recently, our church team has intentionally taking extra time to reflect on what we are doing in our church. Action without reflection can have dire effects. Course correction is constantly needed. Daniel Patrick Forrester’s compelling book Consider: Harnessing the Power of Reflective Thinking In Your Organization is an alarm for organizations to take time for…
By: Sharenda Roam on March 5, 2014
“Consider Reflection & Haiku” After reading “Consider” this week I must agree with Seth Godin in his statement regarding this book, “While the world seems to want you to go ever faster…it actually rewards you for being insightful and for doing work with meaning. I know it’s hard to slow down to read this, but…
By: rhbaker275 on March 4, 2014
In Consuming Religion: Christian Faith and Practice in A Consuming Market, Vincent J. Miller begins with the premise that the culture of the consumer in the market place has established ideals, but more important, the practice of consumer cultural ideologies diminishes and displaces belief as a significant factor in consumer spending habits. Miller states his…
By: rhbaker275 on March 3, 2014
My personal exposure to studies in psychology and more specifically, social psychology is very limited. I have never studied Freud. Understanding why people do what they do often remains a mystery to me. The concepts of an action being neurotic or subscribing neuroses to an action, congers up more a sense of subversive fear than…
By: Miriam Mendez on March 2, 2014
Here is another multiple choice question for you. This question was the million dollar question answered by a young man who was a contestant on the game show, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” So here is your opportunity, not to win a million dollars, but to gain the satisfaction of answering it correctly: Which…
By: Stefania Tarasut on March 2, 2014
Book: The Rebel Sell by Heath/Potter Reading through “The Rebel Sell” over the past few days has stirred in me a million different emotions. Every paragraph seemed to challenge, annoy, convict or put a smile on my face. There are soo many things that I would love to include in this post, but I need…
By: Carol McLaughlin on March 2, 2014
There have been times in our reading when it has been difficult to determine “what” has resonated most strongly. Where do I begin? How do I even express what I am still digesting? (If you read that again it might just make you laugh, but hopefully not cringe!). The books that are impacting me the…
By: Mark Steele on March 2, 2014
The statistics are out and the news is not good. The Wall Street Journal says the average worker will have approximately 7 careers in one lifetime and the average American worker changes employers every 4 years. I have been fortunate to have been in my job for 15 years but that came after I made…
By: Mitch Arbelaez on March 1, 2014
Yes! I am a product of the 80’s. Psychedelic colors, big hair, parachute pants, Members Only jacket, MC Hammer – “You can’t touch this,” break dancing (still got some moves), and of course rock ’n’ roll! We were cool, we were hip, we were the bomb. Parents didn’t get us. They were lame, out of…
By: John Woodward on March 1, 2014
Recently Leonardo DiCaprio did the interview circuit for his new movie “The Wolf of Wall Street,” a movie that depicted a wealthy trader on Wall Street who had a “lust for wealth and the lust for consuming everything around him.” This drove him to extremes of debauchery that make up much of the movie. It…
By: Telile Fikru Badecha on February 28, 2014
The Rebel Sell: How The Counterculture Became Consumer Culture by Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter, is informative work on the roles that countercultural rebels played in America using very compelling stories to elucidate their points. The countercultural notion that the authors discuss in this book is new to me and I appreciate the opportunity to…
By: Liz Linssen on February 28, 2014
Throughout the centuries, we have seen movements that have arisen to redress society’s oppression: the French Revolution, Marxism, Communism and so on. Movements that responded to the pain of the hurting masses, that rebelled against the dominating powers in order to “level the playing fields”. In more recent years, we have seen this through the…
By: Sam Stephens on February 28, 2014
Reading Shelly Trebesch’s Isolation: A Place of Transformation in the Life of A Leader, brought to mind an experience I had twenty years ago while traveling in Germany. I see that as an ‘Isolation’ according to Shelly’s description, one that leaders are taken through voluntarily or involuntarily. Passing through such a valley of ‘isolation’, transforms…
By: Michael Badriaki on February 28, 2014
Everyone at some point enjoys the consumption of a particular good, item and commodity. For example, I consume a certain amount of information weekly as I read the different books assigned in my doctoral program. I think that consuming is not the problem in and of itself’, but it’s extremes to which humanity can be…
