Consumer or Investor?

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year . . .” 

As I hear Andy Williams crooning this tune each Christmas, it fosters memories of amazing aromas, multicolored lights, manger scenes, and presents. I don’t believe that I am alone in my sentimental feelings about this song. Wal-Mart and Staples, among others, have used these emotions for this song to entice us to acquire amazing gifts for our loved ones, ultimately to become consumers.  There is one problem: this song has nothing to do with consumerism. It is about relationships, relationships that require an investment.

 

The consumer/investor paradox is also evident in Christian education. How a parent views their outlay of capital for the education will greatly impact the depth of the return they receive. A consumer typically focuses on short-term needs or wants. A parent who is a consumer of Christian education may be looking for an escape from public education or an opportunity to correct a behavioral problem. The focus is not a partnership.

An investor in Christian education seeks a long-term return. Investors seek opportunities to build relationships of understanding and partnership. Investors depend on those relationships to weather the inevitable storms. Investors in Christian educations recognize the life-skills that are being developed for service and the worldview that is being deepened for eternity. The long-term benefit of such an investment is the impact on culture with the Truth of the Gospel through the beneficiaries of the investment.

Are you a consumer or an investor?

“Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” Ephesians 4:13-16