I'm not dogging on those of you who got up early to be a part of that tradition of Black Friday, though I'm sure it got it's name from the bruises that people get in the process. I've done it many times myself and there's something exciting about being a part of the madness. I'm not sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way, American consumers went insane.
I said today in the message that we live in a very materialistic culture. But nothing makes the point better than the annual pilgrimage to the big box stores on the day after Thanksgiving, when we forget how thankful we are and stay up all night (or get up at an ungodly hour) to be a part of the herd that is after those "great deals." In fact, many people have just given up on Thanksgiving altogether and decided to either get an early start with stores opening on Thursday afternoon, or camping out for hours before the stores open. What in the world could be on the other side of those doors that would be worth the riots?
This year, a mob of Wal-Mart shoppers trampled a man to death and were even angry when the store managers tried to deal with the situation. What in the world has happened to us when we value the garbage that we can buy at stores over human life? That stuff that is out-of-date before we even remove the wrapping paper. This is a wake-up call that should sound the alarm that something has to be done. We've got to break the grip of our consumer-culture by learning to give BIG instead of feeding the need for greed.
At The Connection Church, we're going to be focusing on Christmas in a different way this year by Regifting, and being a church that is known for what we give instead of what we take.