The Producers...

When my maternal grandmother was 14 years old, she was married.  Thankfully, no one any younger can legally marry ... even in Alabama.  While she may not have been very prepared for being a wife, she was well prepared to run a household.   She could plant a garden and cook or can everything it produced.  Having 8 siblings, she knew a little something about the demands of a busy home.  She could sew a dress from a flour sack and wash it by hand in the creek a half-mile away ... even in winter... with handmade lye soap.   She later gave birth to twins at home and then, as the story goes, mopped the bedroom floor.  She worked hard her whole life; she was a producer ... which allowed her to also be a giver.  She gave away handmade quilts and jam made from strawberries grown in her sideyard.  Every memory I have of my granny ends with a happy heart and a full tummy.  All this reminiscing leads me to a question:  When did we become a consumer culture?     

Consumership is everywhere ... in every arena ... in every aspect of our culture.  We want it all ... no credit, no problem; no money down, no interest until 2099.   We only have to look at the economic status of these United States to see the misery brought on by endless consumption.  Sadly, this mentality extends even into the church. Like bargain-hunters at the outlet mall, church-shoppers compare children's programs and worship music.   Shrewd investors ... looking for minimal outlay with maximum return.  We are more often consumers than producers ... and we, too, are poorer for it.  We are forfeiting the joy of giving and the satisfaction of serving, only to find more and more emptiness.   We hold the church in contempt because it meets neither our needs nor our expectations.   It's time we take responsibility not only for our own spiritual growth but for meeting the needs of those around us as well.  It's time to dig into the Word and avail ourselves to the Spirit, who gives us the power to produce.  Then we'll have something to give even sweeter than Granny's strawberry jam.