As a pastor, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to increase the visibility of our church on the cultural radar screen of our community.  While it’s clear that most people in the neighborhood know where our building is, far fewer seem to find what we are about of interest to them.

There was a day when most Americans’ social life revolved around the church.  There are communities where this is still the case, but increasingly, Americans are investing their time and energy (not to mention resources) in other places.  But it’s not just churches that are suffering.  Americans are investing less of their social capital in all kinds of social organizations, from sororities to bowling leagues to service organizations.

So where are they spending their time?  Mostly at home and mostly in front of the television.  That said, some things get people out more.  Folks spend more time shopping, and more time eating out.  But in the last 50 years, fewer people are living in the communities where most socializing happens.  Rural/small town communities, and urban centers have tended to be most social.  The move to the suburbs coincided with the decline in social engagement.

Many of you already know that I am an NPR junkie.   I found a recent interview on Steve Scher’s Weekday radio program (KUOW, April 18) quite provocative.  Steve’s guest was Banjamin Barber, author of CONSUMED, How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole.  His analysis added depth to my understanding of the factors that are changing our country.

In brief, Barber notes that the core virtue of our economic system is that it marries altruism with self-interest.  “In producing goods and services that answer real consumer needs, it secures a profit for producers.  Doing good for others turns out to entail doing well for yourself.”

Unfortunately, capitalism’s success has meant that core wants in the developed world are now mostly met and that too many goods are now chasing too few needs.  But capitalism requires us to ‘need’ all that it produces in order to survive.  “So it busies itself manufacturing needs for the wealthy while ignoring the wants of the truly needy.”

The latest figures show that American advertisers are spending around $270 billion a year on advertising.  $40 billion of that is spent on advertising to children.  Marketing gurus have learned that marketing a brand to children is the most valuable way to secure future sales.  Children can recognize brand logos even before they learn to speak.  And more than ever before, children are controlling spending.  The average American child now controls the spending of more than $90 a week.

Ironically, even as children are being empowered as consumers, advertisers are trying to ‘dumb down’ adult consumers, shaping their wants, encouraging impulse buying and shopping on credit.  The sub-prime loan crisis is just one example of how the market’s pursuit of profit at the expense of fiscal responsibility can jeopardize the whole economy, to say nothing of homeowners who lose their homes.  All around, Americans are giving less to churches and other non-profits and spending more on themselves.  And the appetites which advertisers feed are not for more meaningful social interactions or civic involvement, but rather for more things which cost money.

“When we see politics permeate every sector of life, we call it totalitarianism.  When religion rules, we call it theocracy.  But when commerce dominates everything, we call it liberty.”  It’s time for us to re-think the consequences of our lifestyle.

Today, our world needs institutions like the church more than ever.  The costs of deepening global inequality are too great.  Environmental degradation, the wasting of resources, and the waging of war are the results.  For capitalism to serve us in this age, it must be guided by policies that reward companies and investors who defer some of their profits to serve real needs.  It must protect our children from unchecked predatory consumerism.  It must level the playing field for producers who invest in safeguards for the environment and their worker’s well-being.

Around the world, we see people of faith empowering socially-responsible entrepreneurism.  Whether it be micro-loan programs, or Heifer livestock partnerships, or Trees for Life community development initiatives, Christians are showing others that giving people a hand up yields the most impressive returns.

As for putting the church on the radar screen, I suspect that the greatest hurdle is not so much learning how to ‘package’ our identity or purpose in a way that appeals to the appetites or fashions of the day.  Rather, it is to demonstrate that we are a people who hunger and thirst for justice, righteousness, and peace, and we will partner with people of any faith or no faith at all who want their children to belong to a different kind of world and are willing to invest their time, passion, and resources to make it so.

That message will not appeal to everyone.  It doesn’t need to.  As Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”