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.