Today I received an email about a “Good-Time gospel Jubilee Show” coming to Fort Wayne next month. It sounds pretty neat. One line describes it as “family friendly” and “affordable,” at only $12 a ticket. By today’s standards, for a special event like that, $12 is a bargain.

And that got me thinking about how much our culture is geared to the middle-class and above, and disregards low-income people. Christian pop culture, like everything else, is geared to suburbanites. The Christian concerts that come through town, Christian workshops and conferences, even some of the ticket-required Christmas programs and dinner theatres that local churches do--they all require discretionary money. And that’s what Christian suburbanites have in abundance.

I once resided in that world, and saw no problem. Now I attend a church populated by low-income people for whom $12 is out-of-bounds. Take a family of five to an event like that, at $12 a pop? No way. Maybe you splurge once a year. But it’s not discretionary money. You'll miss that $60.

And so--is this event truly “affordable”? Is the Third Day concert affordable? The Living Christmas Tree? Only if you’ve decided that you are absolutely not attempting to draw poor people. And I guess we (yes, we) suburbanites are generally okay with that.