April 30, 2006
Image Isn’t Everything 2: depth and transparency offer hope for GenX
In part 1 of his post, Andy Rowell lamented the preoccupation his generation has for image management, and the way GenX church leaders have adopted this vice. In part 2 Andy offers a few antidotes to younger church leaders seeking a more genuine spirituality.
I think there are three dangers we need to be vigilant about. First, we need to beware of the tendency to be image-strong and content-weak. GenX ministries need to be careful about distinguishing themselves solely by their name and website. We want to convey, “This is not your average church.” But we want to be better than the average church in substantial ways. In the end, it is not these three that remain: websites, jargon, and coffee. Let us teach better, worship better, and love better than the “average” church.
Second, we need to beware of our attention-getting tendencies.
Right now, Generation Xers are between the ages of 23-38. Not many of us are senior pastors, denominational leaders, authors, magazine editors, spiritual directors, or seminary professors. But we are longing to be in those positions, to make a name for ourselves, to make an impact. There is nothing wrong in itself with those desires. But we have to remind ourselves that sometimes our desire to draw people to Christ can get mixed up with our motivation to draw people to our ministry and thus get attention for ourselves. That doesn’t mean we stop doing evangelism or making ourselves attractive to outsiders in every way we can. But it does mean, we keep doing our “closet work”–prayer, study, and pursuing deep relationships to keep us honest.
Third, we need to beware of a lack of transparency. My earlier description of “event preparation” almost sounds like Screwtape’s advice to a younger devil learning his trade–“Deceive! Don’t tell the audience your secrets. Manipulate what they experience.” We may be image-conscious, but we do not want to be working for the Deceiver.
Transparency is the antidote. We must not do anything we wouldn’t want exposed to the light. In fact, we should be intentional about exposing our ideas to other respected Christians for their input. And though it is tempting to fudge the truth, we need to be prepared to candidly report what we have done and what is going on. If we are doing the following sort of things, we need to be able to admit them. Use the following as practice statements:
- “We hired that guitar player for $500.”
- “That projection equipment cost $30,000.”
- “I worked 35 hours on that message and didn’t spend a lot of time with my family because I wanted to make it good.”
- “My staff expenses this year were $2,000.”
- “We paid a professional $1000 to come up with that logo.”
- “I only spent an hour on that message last night because I didn’t prioritize my time well.”
- “I will be taking four weeks of vacation.”
- “As a worship team, we are having a difficult time understanding one another and it has been painful for all of us.”
- “I am seeing a counselor.”
Honesty needs to be habitual for us. We must schedule regular times to communicate with people about what is going on in our ministries. We need to meet with individuals as well as hold “town hall meetings.” Transparency is the hardest when the people have been kept in the dark for a long time. Regular transparency will protect us from letting image lead us down a path of habitual deception.
Today, at the coffee shops and conferences, GenX pastors compare ministry coffee bars, digital presentations, and narrative preaching styles but my hope is that more and more we will discuss these things with each other:
• Beyond the gimmicks, how is your ministry really different?
• What are you learning from your time in the closet?
• How are you seeking to be transparent about the running of the ministry?
Some wonder about the future of the church. Some wonder about the future of its leaders. If image-conscious GenX pastors start to ask each other these questions, I will be hopeful for the future of both.
Posted by UrL at April 30, 2006 | Comments (14) | TrackBack
April 27, 2006
Image Isn’t Everything: the uneasy conscience of a GenX pastor
Not long ago I attended a young adult ministry conference. My wife commented that I looked out of place because none of my clothing was torn. I showed her the frayed cuffs of my pants to verify my young-church-leader credentials. Andy Rowell was associate pastor at Granville Chapel, Vancouver, British Columbia, and recently became visiting instructor in biblical studies, Christian education, and philosophy at Taylor University in Indiana. Here Andy shares his concern over the image management that he sees driving the younger generation of pastors.
Perhaps you have noticed at your most recent pastor’s conference that a number of young pastors have slipped away together. If you had followed them, you might have found them in a plain church basement room with chairs circled around together. And if you drew close enough to overhear them speaking, you might have heard, “Hello, my name is _________ and I’m an Image-Conscious GenX pastor.” Unbeknownst to you, you would have stumbled into the latest booming group therapy movement.
All joking aside, I can’t help but recognize the unease in my conscience about how image-conscious we are becoming as young pastors. I want to share with you some examples of the importance of image as well as some of my concerns about this tendency.
First, GenX pastors want a cool sounding name for our new ministries. We name it something like Axis or Mars Hill or The Inn or The Place or The Tapestry. (Many start with “The _____” perhaps likening back to “The Way” in the book of Acts?) Why the catchy name? People have become desensitized to much of what is presented before them. Therefore the image, the name, is important. Sadly, people are not likely going to read the ministry’s statement of faith. As shallow as it seems, it is probably true that some will give the fresh-named ministry a second look based solely on its name. In this sense, GenX pastors subscribe to the cliché “always make a good first impression.”
Though we may rightly question whether the name will still sound cool in ten years, the fresh names stem from good evangelistic motivations. These names are intended to be pre-evangelism. They intend to communicate to the skeptical seeker, “This is not the church you’re used to. Give us a shot.”
Second, GenX pastors put a huge emphasis on having a sharp-looking website, preferably with lots of digital effects and edgy photos. The logo needs to be professionally designed if at all possible and the color scheme chosen carefully. Black is always a popular choice. Above all else, “Thou shalt not be tacky.”
The reasoning for the great website is similar to the “cool-sounding name.” Make a good first impression. More and more frequently, people searching for a church are using their web browser to “do the walking” rather than visiting a church themselves. If the website is not lame or offensive, they may come to visit on a Sunday morning.
Third, GenX pastors want people to experience something real and fresh in worship. Maybe some other GenX worship planners can identify with the following kind of thinking:
Though you are seeking excellence, make sure no one knows how much work you have put in. This takes away from the impact. Make it look effortless and that it was just thrown together. People will believe that the assembled talent and brilliance made the experience “just happen.” If people see how much work and planning went into it, they may feel like you manufactured the experience–that you are trying to orchestrate something–or force something on them. They want “organic” experiences. So, spend the money you need to spend to make it happen. Then, plan and prepare like crazy late into the night with the most talented people you can find (musicians, technical folks, presenters, set designers, chefs).
When it is event time, put on your jeans (frayed and faded when purchased), mess up your hair, stick on your tight t-shirt, have a coffee in your hand, and saunter into the room as if you didn’t have a care in the world. When people are amazed at the profundity and power of what they experience, just shrug and tell them, “I guess it worked. It just happened.”
Our generation has been profoundly moved and affected by movies. Not unlike Steven Spielberg, the GenX pastor wants the people attending to be inspired and to be touched by the story, music, and message presented. The idea is to present a message powerfully in order to make a deep and lasting impression on the audience.
Maybe some of what I have described thus far bothers you. Aren’t we as Christians supposed to be less focused on appearances and more concerned with the heart? Aren’t some of the practices I described verging on dishonesty? GenX pastors I know are troubled by these same concerns. I’m not alone in feeling conscience-stricken by the emphasis on projecting a great image. There is widespread unease about it. But what can we do about it?
In part two of Andy Rowell's post he'll discuss some ways to overcome a preoccupation with image.
Posted by UrL at April 27, 2006 | Comments (33) | TrackBack
April 25, 2006
Drama King: one pastor drops preaching entirely for dramas
For decades churches have been experimenting with forms of communication, and one of the hallmarks of seeker churches has been the use of dramas in worship gatherings. It should come as no surprise that a church named Hot Metal Bridge Faith Community has chosen to push this experimentation to its logical end. The church has chosen to communicate biblical truths and narratives entirely through dramas—the sermon is no more.
Hot Metal Bridge has been getting a lot of press for its unusual worship format. Both The Wall Street Journal and the Today Show have run stories. Here is what some other media sources are reporting:
No one preaches at Hot Metal Bridge. Plays are its liturgy. Mr. Walker, a soon-to-be ordained United Methodist minister, leads the church with his friend Jeff Eddings, a Presbyterian seminarian. "Instead of coming to our church and listening to a sermon, you can be part of the sermon," Mr. Walker says.
Most of Mr. Walker's plays explore Bible themes flavored with pop culture and modern-day skepticism. "Sticking With Fishing" ponders what would have happened had Peter not dropped his net to follow Jesus. Elijah joins a man on the ledge thinking about a last leap. The archangel Gabriel kills time as he awaits news of Christ's birth.
Beyond dramas, Hot Metal Faith also hosts a Bible Fight Club to debate theological and social issues:
On Tuesday, the church and shop host Bible Fight Club, a rollicking debate about social issues, heaped with New Testament. About 25 people sat on lumpy couches in the basement, discussing paranormal phenomena, debating whether children are more in touch with angels and whether prayer helps?
Continue reading the full article about Hot Metal Faith’s unique ministry here.
Posted by UrL at April 25, 2006 | Comments (17) | TrackBack
April 19, 2006
The eBay Atheist: musings about the Christian media
Are you looking for new people to attend your church? Try eBay. In January, DePaul University graduate student, and committed atheist, Hemant Mehta listed his services on the auction site. Mehta promised to attend one hour of church for every ten dollars of the final bid.
Off the Map.org purchased the atheist’s services for $504 and sent Mehta on his assignment to attend churches throughout the Chicago area. With an open mind, an outsider’s perspective, and a dose of humor, Hemant has been reporting his findings on Off the Map’s “Atheist Blog.”
In a recent post, Mehta explained why he’s addicted to Christian media. He began with his musings about TV preacher and megachurch pastor Joel Osteen:
I enjoy watching Joel [Osteen] for the same reason many Christians don’t watch him– it’s Christian-lite!
He’s not solely dependent on the Bible to make a point. Instead of using the Bible to write a sermon, it always seems to me that he wrote the sermon with a life lesson in mind, and then consulted the Bible to back up his points. And I walk away from watching him thinking, “I do need to make better use of my time!” instead of “I should read Mark because Chapter 2 (or whatever) said some interesting things about Jesus.” Obviously, the former sits better with Atheists.
Reflecting on the print media, Mehta noticed the many conferences marketed in Christian magazines:
I enjoy the advertising of the (approximately) 23128937182 conferences going on each month, hosted by the same pastor husbands with their big-blonde-haired wives. I’m not ripping on them at all (I’m sure Atheist conventions wish they had just a fraction of the attendees of any of these Christian conventions)–it all just seems so homogenous. Even the ads for the conventions are all the same. The inset Glamour-Shot poses of the hosts, the globe in the background, and the Photoshopped image of all the speakers together in a row.
The eBay atheist summarizes his observations:
Moral of the story: Christianity works best for non-believers when we hear stories that sound like something we would see or do. Joel tells me to not be dishonest by telling a story from his college days (Hey, I went to college, too!) and then supports his message with a story from the Bible. Dobson tells me I shouldn’t be dishonest because Proverbs 6:16-19 says so (as he does in the April issue of Charisma). Period. Who would I be more inclined to listen to?
Read the full post here. And for more insights from Hemant Mehta, the eBay atheist, visit Off-the-Map.org.
Posted by UrL at April 19, 2006 | Comments (23) | TrackBack
April 17, 2006
The Brutal 'Burbs: how the suburban lifestyle undermines our mission
A surge of new books have hit store shelves about the challenges facing followers of Christ who live in the suburbs. Many voices are beginning to say that the lifestyle of the affluent suburbanite, while heralded for 50 years as the fulfillment of the American dream, may actually be detrimental to the Christian life and mission. In this post David Fitch, a pastor and professor in suburban Chicago, and a regular contributor to Out of Ur, addresses the difficulty of practicing the biblical discipline of hospitality in the isolation of the 'burbs.
My church is very much in the suburbs. Specifically, the northwest suburbs of Chicago. Strangely as these suburbs have become more diverse (conspicuously more Hispanic, Asian, as well as other ethnicities) they have become more starkly spatialized. Each family unit is isolated in its own house with fenced in yard and automatically-opening garage that can be driven into permitting all contact with the outside world to be avoided.
David Matzko McCarthy in his wonderful book, Sex and Love in the Home, describes the myth of this suburbia:
The dream of the suburbs is a self-sufficient home, inhabited by affable kin and grace with plenty of yard to provide a buffer between neighbors. The aim of suburban life is to choose a home and neighborhood where we can be happy, where people work hard and respect the ways of others, and where families get along on their own and come together for recreation and leisure….The great pleasure of home ownership is freedom and autonomy.
McCarthy proceeds to describe how the suburbs are built for the idolization of the affectionate family as the end and purpose of all life. The problem? When the family becomes another form of life separated from God and the church, it too becomes another form of self-imploding narcissism.
By idolizing the family, suburbanites may become focused on consuming more stuff to create the perfect home and family. There is nothing but contrived affection left to keep the home together. And children who learn they are the center of this universe from parents actually develop characters that believe they really are the center of the universe.
After decades of this suburban lifestyle America is left with families split by divorce, kids leaving in rebellion, and millions on various drugs to relieve the emptiness as the idolized family turns out to be a myth. Apart from the personal destruction the suburbs can bring, suburban isolation also poses a real problem for the spreading of the gospel.
If hospitality is to be a central way of life for the spreading of the gospel, the alienation of the suburbs is a condition of our exile we must overcome. Elsewhere I have said:
… evangelical Christians must consistently invite our neighbors into our homes for dinner, sitting around laughing, talking, listening and asking questions of each other. The home is where we live, where we converse and settle conflict, where we raise children. We arrange our furniture and set forth our priorities in the home. We pray for each other there. We share hospitality out of His blessings there. In our homes then, strangers get full view of the message of our life. Inviting someone into our home for dinner says “here, take a look, I am taking a risk and inviting you into my life.” By inviting strangers over for dinner, we resist the fragmenting isolating forces of late capitalism in America. It is so exceedingly rare, that just doing it speaks volumes as to what it means to be a Christian in a world of strangers.
And yet this has proved so much harder than we ever expected for the reasons I’ve stated in this post. Inviting someone over for dinner in the hostile suburbs is regularly considered pathological. Suburban people are either too busy, too self-protected, or too worried what your agenda might be to ever come over. Likewise, I as a pastor and others in our church are regularly so busy, it hardly seems possible.
Do I believe it is impossible? No. We must continue to pursue a relentless practice of being hospitable as a distinctive subversive Christian act in the suburbs. I must change my life to live more simply, have more time and practice neighborhood acts of cooperative living. I must ask my neighbor, co-worker or friend in the park over for dinner "70 times 7" times if that is what it takes.
The city seems less afflicted with the problems of the suburbs. So they say? Yet I lived there for many years and I cannot say there is too much difference in at least the increasingly wealthier gentrified parts of the city (where many of the emerging churches are camped out). What worries me is that the inner city has become the hip place to live as more people reverse commute in Chicago. Just as the rich fled the city 40 years ago, now they are fleeing the suburbs for the inner city. And of course emergent churches seem to be more attracted to the hip of the city.
However, I plead for a truly subversive Christianity that practices hospitality in the hostile world of the white washed suburbs. I plead for more emerging communities of faith in the suburbs. Let us seek to be faithfully combating the overwhelming Walmartization of Christianity by a vigorous and relentless practice of hospitality.
David Fitch is pastor of Life on the Vine Christian Community in Long Grove, Illinois, a professor of ministry, theology, and ethics at Northern Seminary, and author of The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business, Parachurch Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism, and Other Modern Maladies (Baker 2006).
Posted by UrL at April 17, 2006 | Comments (18) | TrackBack
April 10, 2006
The Passion Reloaded: is the silver screen really an outreach silver bullet?
Two years ago, Mel Gibson’s film, The Passion of the Christ, was marketed heavily to church leaders as “perhaps the best outreach opportunity in 2,000 years.” Gibson stunned Hollywood naysayers by pocketing over $600 million as The Passion became the eighth highest grossing film of all time. By targeting churches The Passion may have uncovered the greatest marketing opportunity in 2000 years. But what about the film’s spiritual impact—did The Passion deliver?
According to George Barna, it did not. Barna conducted an extensive survey of those who saw the film and concluded:
“Among the most startling outcomes…is the apparent absence of a direct evangelistic impact by the movie…. Less than one-tenth of one percent of those who saw the film stated that they made a profession of faith or accepted Jesus Christ as their savior in reaction to the film’s content.”
Either The Passion wasn’t the greatest outreach opportunity in 2000 years, or churches simply squandered the opportunity it presented.
Barna thinks the problem was relying upon a film to impact lives in a culture saturated with media. “In an environment in which people spend more than 40 hours each week absorbing a range of messages from multiple media, it is rare that a single media experience will radically reorient someone’s life.”
After seeing Gibson’s financial success Disney hired the same marketing firm used by The Passion. Motive Marketing helped Disney convince pastors that its Narnia film was a powerful tool for reaching non-Christians. And repeating The Passion frenzy of 2004, churches gobbled up tickets, reserved entire theaters, devised sermon series, and plastered Narnia marketing materials throughout their communities.
With Motive Marketing’s church-based marketing campaign Disney has collected nearly $300 million from Narnia. And while data is still being assessed on the spiritual impact of the film, it’s a safe bet that Narnia will have impacted fewer Americans than The Passion did. (Of course, with Disney releasing the DVD in time for Easter it’s not too late for your church to launch another marketing campaign.)
Paul Lauer, president of Motive Marketing, says his company's primary mission isn't marketing movies, but rather “providing congregations with tools to further their goals.” Given that The Passion and Narnia have collectively earned nearly one billion dollars, while the church’s goal hasn’t measurably advanced at all, maybe Mr. Lauer needs to reassess his company’s mission.
The debate over using films for evangelism isn’t new. Back in 2004, Leadership hosted a lively interaction about The Passion’s potential for outreach featuring Rick Warren and Brian McLaren. Warren wrote that his church was eagerly riding the “spiritual tsunami” created by the film. He reported 892 commitments to Christ were made during his two-week sermon series based on The Passion, over 600 new smalls groups were formed, and his church’s average attendance increased by 3,000. This response, while worth celebrating, according to George Barna does not represent the experience of most churches who reported little or no growth as a result of the film.
Brian McLaren, on the other hand, was hopeful that millions would be impacted by Gibson’s film but he remained skeptical. McLaren was bothered by the hype surrounding the movie and questioned why slogans such as “the greatest outreach opportunity in 2000 years” held such sway with church leaders. He cautioned us to not put our hope in “products (like films, radio broadcasts, boxed programs, etc.),” but in the good works of disciples filled with God’s love."
McLaren’s cautions seem to be validated by Barna’s research. Despite having more media resources than ever before to accomplish its mission, including big-budget films, the church in America isn’t growing. Barna reported that church attendance has been experiencing “a very slow but steady descent” for the last 15 years. Disturbingly, at the same time churches are increasingly looking to the silver screen to aid in outreach, Barna reports that less then one in 25 churches ranks prayer as a top priority.
Disregarding the measurable ineffectiveness of film as an outreach tool, church leaders continue their love affair with Hollywood. Outreach Inc. conducted a survey in January that revealed 68% of churches were “likely” or “very likely” to use The Da Vinci Code film (opening May 19) as an evangelistic tool, and a staggering 77% said they were planning a sermon series on the film. (Proverbs 26:11 anyone?) Accountants at Columbia Pictures, producer of The Da Vinci Code, must be salivating at this forecast.
It seems many church leaders have lost the healthy skepticism anyone navigating a consumer culture must possess. Rather than pinning our missional hopes on the latest pop culture wave, which is artificially produced by marketers, church leaders might benefit from remembering the old adage, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Evidence shows that there is no outreach silver bullet, no “greatest opportunity ever.” As Craig Detweiler, the chair of mass communications at Biola University, says, “Salvation certainly won't come from Hollywood."
Modeling a balanced perspective too rare today, Detweiler believes films must be linked to a more incarnational approach to outreach, “Movies give us an easy, non-threatening way to continue a conversation and deepen relationships with pre-believers that we've already started.” As Brian McLaren said two years ago, our culture doesn’t need to see “a movie about Jesus: show them a movement of people living like Jesus.”
Posted by Skye Jethani at April 10, 2006 | Comments (39) | TrackBack
April 6, 2006
Disposable Worship: a caution about using too much technology in worship
Last month I attended a “worship experience” that included smoke machines, lasers, digital graphic projections, and more flat panel screens than I could count. Technology is changing the way we worship, but what are we losing as a result? David Fitch, pastor of Life on the Vine Christian Community in Long Grove, Illinois, and author of The Great Giveaway (Baker, 2006), encourages us to use greater discernment when employing technology in worship.
I read a nice story recently about football player Jerome Bettis (aka “the Bus”) returning home to Detroit for the Super Bowl. They described his whole journey and how he bought a house for his parents on a golf course in suburban Detroit. But he didn’t stop there. Johnie Bettis, the running back’s mother, recalls: “When Jerome found out we were going to the laundromat, he said that wasn’t acceptable and told us to go get a new washer and dryer. But I kind of liked the laundromat because you get to meet so many interesting people.”
Mrs. Bettis’ comments reminded me how technology can change the inherent “good” of the basic practices of our lives. Technology, in this case a washer and dryer, means no longer needing to go to the laundromat. As a result, we lose the “good” of meeting and engaging interesting people in our lives. We must therefore discern whether more technology (buying a washer and a dryer, a cell phone, or Tivo) is a good idea by considering more than just the capitalist reasons: “it's more efficient,” “it saves time,” or “it just looks and feels so good.”
The same of course is true of worship. Not every technologically enhanced “improvement” necessarily improves our worship. The flashing of the Lord’s Prayer on the screen with a powerful graphic may disable us from bowing as a community and saying it from our soul’s memory—in submission together as a Body of Christ.
The brilliant Albert Borgmann in his book Power Failure, narrates for us how technology can change something that was once a “commanding reality” with deep personal and corporate value, and turn it into a “disposable reality” devoid of meaning and power. For example, the music symphony that took so much time, effort, tuning up of instruments, the staging of a concert hall . . . is now reduced to a handy CD that we can play at our convenience and command. He believes this shift to a disposable reality changes us and how we view our world.
Borgmann says technology can make certain wonderful “goods” in our lives disappear without us even knowing it. Example: the central fireplace is replaced by the invisible central air furnace. In the process the family that once gathered around the fireplace to get warm before heading off to bed no longer engages in the community-building routine. The family no longer talks about the day, tells stories, or prays together. Through technology we lose what Borgman calls a “focal practice.” We lose a concrete, formative, and simple activity, and our lives are changed without ever noticing.
The question is obvious. Have we lost worship as a focal practice? By turning it into an “experience” saturated with convenient technology, have we made worship a disposable reality when in it is supposed to be a commanding reality?
Last night at a worship meeting we talked at length about the use of technology and graphic arts in our worship service this past Sunday. We want to retain the concrete nature and the formative practice of art in our church, but any art that shocks or produces a disposable experience we try to avoid. Art is really important in our church, but we must not produce disposable experiences. We must retain the focal practice of worship.
Focal practices and commanding realities are things we lose when we purchase a washer and dryer. These are things we lose when we turn worship into a theater show for the masses. And so we must be careful with the application of technology in worship. I am not saying don't use it! I am saying let us be discerning. I believe we need the candles, the wonder, and the mystery of the concrete embodiment of Christ’s work at the Lord’s Table. We need to kneel (if our knees will hold out) before God with all our brokenness. And we need to use the marvelous technologies of our day in worship in ways that resist making God, community, and worship disposable.
David Fitch is pastor of Life on the Vine Christian Community in Long Grove, Illinois, a professor of ministry, theology, and ethics at Northern Seminary, and author of The Great Giveaway: Reclaiming the Mission of the Church from Big Business, Parachurch Organizations, Psychotherapy, Consumer Capitalism, and Other Modern Maladies (Baker 2006).
Posted by UrL at April 6, 2006 | Comments (28) | TrackBack
April 4, 2006
A "Different" Kind of Church: how secular marketing is fueling church competition
General Motors launched its Saturn brand in 1990 with the tag line, “A different kind of company, a different kind of car.” GM believed they could carve out a market niche by addressing the collective American psyche's negative view of car dealers. They were right. Saturn’s “no-haggle” sales policy earned it awards for customer satisfaction. In the car business, it pays to be different.
Dave Terpstra, pastor of The Next Level Church in Denver and a regular contributor to Out of Ur, has observed that many churches are adopting the “different is good” marketing strategy used by secular companies. (Who can forget, “Little. Yellow. Different.”?) But by championing our differences, are we treating other churches like fellow communities of Christ, or like competitors?
Because my church’s primary service is on Tuesday nights, I have the opportunity to visit other area churches at least once a month. I call it my church-of-the-month club. This past Sunday I read this in the bulletin of the church I visited: “[Church Name] is a different kind of church.” They went on to explain how their church is for those who don’t like organized religion or for people who have not had their needs met by a traditional church.
Another church I have visited was “different” because it was a place where there’s “no pressure or guilt.” Still another church I know claims to be different because it is for a new generation. I searched Google for “a different kind of church." Here are a few examples of what I found:
“Your first impression of [church name] may be, “This doesn’t seem like a typical church.” And we think that’s good.”“[Church name] is a different kind of church, making a difference.”
“Even if you didn't think you would ever feel comfortable in church, this is a different kind of church. We want to be your church.”
Google returned 924 results. It seems “different” churches may not be so different after all. But that got me wondering—why do church leaders feel the need to advertise how different their church is from others? Admittedly, I have used this terminology when talking about my church. And it was in the not-too-distant past that our church used similar terminology very regularly.
The simplest answer is that we are marketing to Christians. If we are targeting the “already convinced,” and if our growth is from transfers and people new in town, then we need to distinguish our product from the neighboring churches’ product. That’s not a new idea. In the past Protestant churches in America used to make distinctions based on theology. Now we do it with our ethos—captured in a snappy catch phrase.
In previous generations we advertised our theology—like infant baptism, or entire sanctification, or speaking in tongues, or making it clear we didn’t believe in those things. Now we make sure the world knows our ethos—we care about families, or we stand for truth, or we are young, or we are accepting.
None of the new statements are necessarily bad. My problem is when they are attached to the phrase “a different kind of church.” When we say we are different because we [fill in the blank]; what we are really doing is making a judgment about the churches around us. I hope your church does care about families. I hope you do stand for truth. I hope you are accepting. But the moment those ideas are labeled as “differences,” you have condemned other churches by making the assumption that they do not do these things.
If your church is a place where there is no pressure or guilt, just say that. Why do you need to imply that my church has pressure and guilt? If your church is for a new generation—great! Let everyone know. Just don’t imply that other churches are not for a new generation.
If we were selling Pepsi, I would tell you to attack Coke. But we are in the business of Christ and His Kingdom, and there is no benefit in smearing one expression of the Bride of Christ to make our version look more appealing to religious consumers.
Posted by UrL at April 4, 2006 | Comments (18) | TrackBack
