San Fransico

The other day a good friend of mine told me to check into this church plant that is going to happen out in San Francisco. I was a little reluctant but she called me again and told me that she really thought that I would fit in well with the community of people that is going and that I thought a lot like the guy who is planting the church. So I checked out the site and tried to figure out what I thought about it.
Well I have to say that I was a little put off by what I saw on the site. I watched these videos from the guy that is planting the church. He talked a lot about consumerism and fast food stuff...the McDonaldization of our culture and all that kind of thing. (I think that's why my friend told me to check it out cause I get on my soap box about those very issuses) In one video the guy was at Q-Doba...a burrito place that is set up kind of like sub-way. You just tell them what you want they make it in front of you and it all happens really fast (that part is sadly unlike subway). Well, first off the video's seemed awkward to me, possibly because Im a video editor, but mainly because they just seemed very contrived, too well scripted or cliche, and overall just fake. But aside from my crtical kind of smart assish take on his video making skillz, I had major objection to his underlying message.

Basically, he is complaining about consumer clutter, i.e. advertizing and the mentality of immediate gratification. Complaining about those thing are healthy I think. But my issue is the fact that his solution is more of the same thing. He is saying that advertizing makes us want to be immediatly gratified and that is a bad thing and that religion...or spirituality doesn't work that way. He said far too many times that "You can't wrap your soul in a burrito." By saying this he is trying to communicate that consumer culture wont satisfy the longings of your soul. This is true. My problem is not with his assesment of the problem but with the solution he offers. The website is promoting a weekly meeting called the Gathering and subtitled a young adult community. Its a slick little website chocked full of videos and mp.3 downloads. In the time that I spent on there I saw links for people who were in college, who had graduated but were single, the people who were married, but only for young people. His solution to consumer and advertizing clutter is a church affinity group that is pre-packaged and slickly advertized, and beyond that its only accessable to young adults. Im sure, based on the assesments of friends who have heard this guy speak, that when the young people get there they hear some good things. But my hang up is that they are being fed more pre-packaged junk to get them there. They are told that "thier souls cannot be wrapped in a burrito" but they are closing their eyes and biting into a big ol' faith burrito that is taylor made for young people who dislike corperate america and the consumer culture that we've created. His whole approache it would seem to me is nothing more than a "sanctified" version of the problem that he is fighting. To me it seems ironic.
The other problem that I have is that its kind of inclusive. It doesn't seem friendly to the elderly, or the poor for that matter. Its seems so focused on the trendy people, the young, the hip, the anti-establishment types to be focused on the fact that a chuch is built from all types of people, and religion pure and untainted is caring for widows and orphans, or at least that is what James tells us. I don't feel that the answer to a culture that is too heavily saturated with mental garbage from corporations trying to compete for consumer loyalty is to follow the same method in planting a church or having a group like the gathering. The answer is feeding poor people, helping build communities where there are none, getting involved in social issuses, loving people without regaurd for what they can give to you. The answer is the gospel, and no it won't fit in a burrito, so why do we try? The gospel is fine on its own, it needs no package, no slick web site or video. Its powerful, and I just feel like too many people...myself included...are missing it.