Stealing Your Attention:
Confessions of an Apologetic Marketing Director
By Mark P. Fisher
President and Head Innovation Coach
In a previous life, I was a Marketing Director in ministry. (from 1991-2005) During that time God worked me over – big time. Today, I am at a different place in my vocational journey and I have a confession… I am in search of depth.
Depth within my soul…
Depth with those around me…
Birthed out of contentment…
Rejecting the shallow, superficial consumer-driven appetite that believes "if I have more I will me happy."
I long for contentment without stuff.
I am reaching for a hope that is satisfied by oneness with God and those around me.
I am rejecting the lie that by striving for a promise by cleaver tricksters with airbrushed pictures of a false reality that I will be happy.
I am calling their bluff.
Refusing to believe that if I buy what they sell I will:I am turning on the light and exposing my own shallow, selfish, misguided motives - hoping and craving for more - only to find it empty.
- Be happy
- look younger
- have more time
- Save money
- Live a life of ease
I confess my participation in the lie. I am sorry.
I am truly sorry for stealing your attention with marketing messages that have you playing on your longing for more, tickled your desire for pleasure, played on your fears, teased your heart with promises that could never really fill you with contentment.
I am recalibrating my life.
Not to fight my fellow masters of messages - but instead, to live a life so full of light that others will see the dim flicker from within my growing heart of contentment that the chains of shallow, superficial consumerism is broken and freedom is alive within me and anyone who will join me.
Could this be in part what Jesus meant in John 8:31 when He said: "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
The Lie…
By Mark P. Fisher
President and Head Innovation Coach
The lie we keep buying
Why can't we see it?
Nothing around us is real.
Sure, the trees are real, unless of course it's one of those hidden cell towers.
I mean the images we see every day, selling us stuff.
It's fake, phony, a pile of lies manufactured in Photoshop by cunning manipulators trying desperately to convince you and I of our deepest dissatisfactions and promising us hope.
It is a LIE.
Nothing in those ads, shows, movies, magazines are real.
They are just airbrushed images of hopes.
They are selling us hope with no substance.
Once we buy 'it', hoping we feel better, look skinnier, have more time, be more impressive, fashionable, good looking, get the free gift, experience the adventure, and be happy, the dirty little secret creeps over us like waking up from a nightmare.
It was a lie - but we are in denial. We think - 'I will feel better if I shop again'.
I recently saw an ad about dog food in a home magazine. It said: 'bring back the girl you fell in love with'? It promises you will actually notice more vitality, increased alertness and energy so that your dog will act younger, friendlier and happier in just two weeks.
What?
Of course, we would love to see this wonderful promise actually happen, not only to our dog but ourselves, but can a bag of (as advertised) advanced protection, veterinarian- endorsed dog food 'bring back the girl you fell in love with'?
I'm not making this stuff up.
You and I are bombarded every day with promises of hope. If only we would open our wallets, buy on credit, our wildest dreams and hopes will come true.
Have we become so hopeless that our senses are numbed to reality and we mindlessly believe the lie - buy until you're happy.
Or as the bumper sticker declares -The one who dies with the most toys - still dies.
Have we become so numb in our spirit - without discernment that all defenses are down and we want what we want when we want it... so leave me alone with your philosophical nonsense and hand me my credit card, remote control, cable buying channel, internet ordering, money back guarantee for happiness.
Please, I beg you. Wake up.
Let us look beyond the images of smiling couples on cruise ships or retired, hammock-swinging models and see the truth.
What we are buying is a temporary fix.
Deep within us is a longing to connect (not with more stuff) but with other people…
The ancient scriptures quietly call out to us...
"Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." (Luke 12:14-15)
Who made this heretical declaration? Does this person live in a cave?
Actually, he walked out of a cave, once dead, and then very much alive.
Mark P. Fisher is the 5th President of Sandy Cove Ministries and lives with his beautiful, red-headed Texas born wife of 20 years while together raising 5 very unique and fascinating children.
