Youth workers should be very cautious about the ways in which their flocks customize their lives and look for ways to shape, instead, that unchanging peace of which Paul speaks.

There’s no one way to do this, of course; but here’s one idea: Lead your group in a fast from personal preferences. Refuse to exert your will over your environment. Stop shopping; stop thinking about your likes and dislikes; don’t supersize, exchange, or substitute anything. Take what life gives and do not complain. Do this everywhere. The resulting discomfort might yield interesting—and sanctifying—results.

Brand Me

I already mentioned that a unique characteristic of consumerist society is that you have to invent yourself in it. Those who refuse, who opt out of consumption, are viewed as freaks: off-the-grid types who grow kale in old oil barrels and keep pet goats. The rest of us are engaged, to varying degrees, in the project of ourselves.

This is nowhere more evident than among adolescents. In a consumerist society, the normal adolescent urge toward self-definition happens on steroids. Think about the variety of vehicles on which teens can establish identities: blogs, e-mail, chat rooms, instant messaging, Second Life, cell-phone texting. These are simply digital identities, having no necessary connection to the old standards of school, church, home. That’s a lot of self-expression they have to worry about.

The quite-predictable result of this simple fact is a pervasive narcissism. You can’t spend as much time on anything as we do on ourselves and then expect not to be at least mildly obsessed with it.

This is, of course, a spiritual problem. Paul urged us to regard others more highly than ourselves. Jesus informed us flat out that self-interest and self-promotion are not kingdom values. The point is we’re not the point. Yet the consumer culture reinforces the notion that we are each the focus of the universe.

Worse, there are all kinds of ways this value system gets reinforced in the church, starting with the spatial metaphor of “inviting Jesus into your heart.” Behold the believer as the center of the spiritual universe, with Jesus dashing over to take up residence. Counter this with the biblical model—the Christian as one who is “in Christ”—and you see how even the way we introduce the lifelong walk of discipleship reinforces the self-importance endemic to consumer society.

The solution isn’t quick, but it’s thorough: In each and every aspect of Christian life, reinforce to the believers the student is formed in the image of the Master. This means the more you look like Jesus, the less concerned you are with personal self-expression.

Having Two Masters Doesn’t Sound So Bad

Here’s the stickler that your youth group parents do not want you telling their children: There is something wrong with being rich. It comes at a spiritual cost. Sinners mentioned in the gospel routinely choose Jesus over their old lifestyle—except the rich young ruler, who “went away sad.” By contrast, exemplary uses of money would be considered unwise by any financial planner: room and board for a wounded stranger, a lavish party for the poor instead of your friends, expensive lotion for a condemned man.