Our Consumed Partner Baptist World Aid have kindly shared this ...
In a culture consumed by consumption,
we are a space for Christians to connect and create solutions
that help align our consumption choices with God’s story.
we are a space for Christians to connect and create solutions
that help align our consumption choices with God’s story.
What makes for a Good Life?
For followers of Jesus in Australia today, there are two stories about the ‘good life’ battling for our hearts and minds. Our culture’s story says that happiness comes through the accumulation of more stuff. By contrast, the Christian story invites us to be content in the grace of a loving God and to find purpose and meaning in the service and love of others.
Many of us long to be free from our captivity to consumption. But the cultural forces driving us to want more seem so powerful and all-encompassing that it feels complex (or even impossible) to choose a different way.
The six streams outlined below provide a framework for us to engage together in a conversation, to move through the complexity, and to chart a path to a different future – a future where we are free to make different choices and to experience the flourishing that comes from living out Jesus’ vision of a truly ‘good life’.
The Good Life?
Consumerism has become a great idol of our age and convinced us that meaning and purpose is found in an ever-increasing consumption of stuff and experiences.
Financial Wellbeing
Physical + Mental Wellbeing
Relational Wellbeing
Care For Creation
Empowerment Not Exploitation
Sharing God’s Abundance
The Good Life Under Christ
There’s an urgent need for Christians to recapture God’s vision of the good life, with love of God and neighbour and the stewardship of His good creation.
The Six Streams Of Consumed
Financial Freedom
Consumerism has led us to pursue excess rather than ‘enough’.
Financial Wellbeing
We are amongst the richest people in the world, yet we are busier, lonelier and less satisfied with what we have. We must move from a desire for ‘excess’ to ‘enough’.
Physical + Mental Wellbeing
The way we consume is seriously damaging our physical and mental wellbeing leaving us stressed and sick.
Physical + Mental Wellbeing
Despite the advancements in medical technology we are increasingly burdened by chronic disease, anxiety and depression. How could our physical and mental health improve if our hearts and minds could be at rest?
Discover More >Relational Wellbeing
Consumerism is damaging our relationships leaving us lonely and disconnected.
Relational Wellbeing
Despite increased access to communication technologies, travel and income to spend on social activities we have become lonelier and more disconnected than ever before.
Care For Creation
Our consumption prevents us from caring for the earth and its creatures.
Care For Creation
The explosion in economic activity of people has put unprecedented stress on the environment. Climate change, harm to animals, and the loss of biodiversity is the result.
Empowerment Not Exploitation
Our consumption impacts people across the globe. Often for the worse.
Empowerment Not Exploitation
Though the things we consume we are connected to people across the planet. Too often this has led to exploitation, enslavement and harm for their communities.
Discover More >Sharing God's Abundance
Our consumerism has prevented us from ensuring all people have enough.
Sharing God's Abundance
The world is materially richer and more ‘prosperous’ than it has ever been, yet hundreds of millions still lack the basics they need to survive and flourish.
How Will Change happen?
Clarify
We want to fully and deeply understand
the impact of consumerism in
our life and how it impacts
our relationship with God,
with others and with
the world around us.Read More >
Amplify
We want to amplify the good work
that is being done to address consumerism.
We will share the best of what’s available
and advocate that more companies
and policy makers adopt
best practice.
Read More >
Create
We want to imagine and create together.
To find new ways and solutions
for individuals, communities and society
to live the good life under Christ
even within a society
consumed by consumerism.
Read More >
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