Book: The Profit of Vail by Pastor Fred Sellers

Are Americans Too Focused on ‘Stuff?’
Pastor Comments on Study That Reveals American Gluttony

Of all the statistics and studies that are hoisted upon the American public to cast a reflection of how they live, the most evil and troubling stat is 15 percent, according to Fred Sellers.

“We waste 15 percent of our money,” said Sellers, pastor of the Victory Church of Norman, Oklahoma and author of The Prophet of Vail Mountain (www.prophetofvailmountain.com). “We are so focused on materialism and buying as much stuff as we can, we actually wind up spending more on things like electronics and toys over the course of our lives than we do on education. But in the end, it’s just a statistic. The thing I worry about is the underlying disease behind it.”

Sellers is referring to a February 2011 study by 24/7 Wall St. that analyzed how Americans spend money. The primary conclusion is that, in spite of the recession and slow recovery, consumers still love spending money on things they don’t need – to the tune of 15 percent. That’s the percentage of the American household budget that is spent on unnecessary goods and entertainment.

The top ten ways Americans wasted 15% of their household income in 2010 included:

• Apparel
• Tobacco
• Entertainment equipment
• Alcohol
• Fees and admissions to attractions
• Vacation lodging
• Pets
• Electronics
• Gifts
• Meals Away from Home

When 24/7 Wall St. posted the study on its site, it clearly didn’t catch the irony of the site’s own reporting. The article included the following observation: “The ‘average’ American household, which has an income of $63,000, spends more than $8,000 on goods and services it does not actually need,” the site reported. “The credit crisis might not have been so bad if all that money had been put into savings accounts between 1989 and 2009, but the period would not have been nearly as fun.”

“So even the people who analyzed the spending and saw how we put ourselves into this financial crunch couldn’t help but echo the very sentiment that got us into the crisis in the first place,” Sellers said. “I guess the moral of their story is that it’s perfectly fine to thrust an entire nation and other parts of the globe into one of the worst financial crises of the modern era, as long as you can say we all had fun doing it.”

But Sellers said he didn’t need a study to tell him that Americans are obsessed with the accumulation of “stuff.” All he said he needed to do was turn on the television.

“One of the most distasteful displays of the American adoration of gluttony took place on the Oprah Winfrey show,” he added. “Every year, she has at least one episode in which she gifts every member of her studio audience with a parcel of gifts that are absurd in their opulence and luxury. When the audience is alerted to each successive prize they’ve won simply by being there, the cameras pan across the studio to show people screaming, jumping and even falling to their knees as if they were at a Pentecostal church revival. They appear to be in some kind of religious ecstasy, almost as if they are worshipping the false gods of commerce.”

About Fred Sellers

Born in Mangum , Oklahoma in 1946, Sellers was born again as a Christian in the summer of 1961. After college, some volunteer work and 17 years in business, Sellers sold all his business interests and was ordained as a minister. He founded the Victory Church in Norman , Oklahoma in his living room in the early 1990s. Today, the church now has more than 300 members, who are served by Pastor Sellers and his wife of 26 years, Priscella.