Scarcity brain could be the death of us

But it doesn't have to be.

Many segments of the Church - and really the culture at large - are stuck in a scarcity mindset. There is not enough (members, money, influence) to go around. We as individuals and congregations are not enough. This is not a helpful way to go about discipleship and ministry. The field of positive psychology tells us that negative emotions, in addition to making us feel bad, narrow our vision and limit our access to creativity and resources. More importantly, scarcity is not a tenet of Christian theology. Jesus was able to create a feast - plus pack a few doggie bags - out of five loaves of bread and two measly fish fingers.

Photo by Natasha Connell on Unsplash.

Interestingly, scarcity brain was once a biological feature and not a bug. When food was hard to come by for our ancestors, or when their lack of shelter put them at risk of succumbing to predators or to the elements, a scarcity outlook kept humans pursuing what they needed to survive. As soon as their bellies were satisfied or they’d gotten decent rest, they were on to the next meal, the next safe place. In an evolutionary sense, this allowed our species to grow its physical and mental capacities. (For more on this history, read Scarcity Brain: Fix Your Craving Mindset and Rewire Your Habits to Thrive with Enough by Michael Easter.)

Now, however, most of us live with more than we need, but we continue to pursue more. This constant striving is often at expense of self and others and can lead to addiction and other illnesses, debt, alienation, and restlessness. At the Church level, we get locked in nostalgia, competition, and stinginess.

The Church of the New Testament was one at the margins. It had to be scrappy to grow and survive. As it grew in influence, eventually moving to the cultural center, it wanted still more, like political power and more and bigger buildings. These efforts were often more about self-preservation and self-aggrandizement than the gospel.

The good news/bad news is that Christianity (at least the more moderate/progressive strain) has moved back to margins with the rise of extremism and rolling back rights. It’s a very scary time, and it provides us an opportunity and a reminder to be focused and scrappy examples of Christ’s love. Let’s employ the useful parts of scarcity brain that keep us moving forward without allowing our hearts and minds to kick into self-protective gear.

Here’s how we make the most of our opportunity: we name or re-root in our values and use them to establish goals. We experiment toward those goals. We assess our experiments and their impact and then repeat them with greater insight. All of this sounds very intellectual, so we must stay connected to our bodies and souls as we do this work so that isn’t just science but truly the art of discerning God’s invitations.  

God created all that is of an overflow of love and imagination, so there is enough. God put a reflection of the divine image in each of us, so we are enough. May we be faithful in using what we have toward a more just and connected world.