The empty-handed church: Discerning consumerism's impact on today's Christian

The aim of ministry in the local church is tragically unclear. Many of today's Christians believe the church exists to meet their needs. Consumer driven marketing schemes constantly bombard people from every media source. They are the perfect incubator for the latent narcissism that exists in everyone by virtue of original sin. The end result is that the moralistic therapeutic deism described by Christian Smith and Melinda Denton in their book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers is as prevalent among other age groups as it is America's youth.;Research methodology for this project included a twenty question survey questionnaire of fifteen adult churchgoers from a rural small membership church in northeast Mississippi. In addition, eight of the fifteen respondents volunteered to participate in a focus group. The survey questions were designed to discover if branding and marketing strategies from the secular realm have influenced the way churchgoers think or behave in their church lives. The focus group discussion provided an opportunity for more in-depth probing.;I discovered that consumerism coupled with secular marketing strategies fueled moralistic therapeutic deism and therefore produced an undeniable sense of narcissistic ideology. For many churchgoers there is little, if any, sense of bringing anything to God on Sundays. However, I also found a yearning to be taught a biblical theology that would lead churchgoers back to a sacrificial God-first ministry.