I used to think Kansas weather was bad...that was until I came to Pittsburgh! It has been dreary for the last 4-5 days. "Ain't no sunshine when she's gone." Don't know who "she" is, but "she" needs to come back to the burgh. I don't have anything mind-boggling to say, just felt like posting and ranting about the crappy weather. Need my sun! Need my son? That could become something mind-boggling. Ok, so I do have something that might make us think a little. My wife and I went to Ponderosa Steakhouse last Sunday. We had never been before and didn't realize it was a "steakhouse" buffet! The food was ok, service-mediocre. What did come out of the experience other than a full belly was the idea of the "Buffet for Religion" Consumer. As we all know, there is a huge obesity epidemic running rampant in basically the United States alone. It seems as though it's working it's way into religion as well.
My wife and I were sitting at this Buffet restaurant discussing the epidemic when the realization came to us: People choose their religion like they choose food at a buffet. Let me break it down. A buffet is simply the "i don't want to make a decision on ONE main course, so I'll get the buffet and be able to sample EVERYTHING!" "What if I don't like the ONE main course I got, then I just wasted my time, my money and I'm still hungry."
People in the United States are beginning to have this mentality when it comes to religion. They are afraid to commit to any ONE belief system, so they decide to take the buffet route and choose a sample of EVERYTHING. They choose the portions they like from each system and create their own. This phenomena is called "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" or MTD.
I'm sure this is becoming a reality for most Youth Pastors as we are seeing it first-hand. Our youth are coming into the church with such mudded beliefs that they don't really commit to real leadership in the church. How do we remedy this? I'm open to ideas. Sure, we could say "Jesus is the only way to heaven!" as emphatically as we would like, but for whatever reason, they are failing to make that connection with their lives. They believe it in theory, but not in practice.
Isn't it interesting that we as a society are becoming gluttons, not only on food, but also religion?
