Spirit Farmer has the following rant over on his blog. You can read the entire post there.
The marketing piece I’ve seen a number of times is the one I love to hate the most. It’s the one that says, “You should check out our church, even though you think church sucks. Because we’re not like those other churches you’ve been to. We don’t suck. We rock. You’ll love our <insert musical style>, your kids will love our <insert program name>, and we promise our preacher won’t bore you. We’re different than the rest!” A variation on this theme is the ad that says “We’re a church for people that don’t like church.”
There are some real problems with this approach to marketing. First, it’s lazy. I’ve been getting the same “Our church doesn’t suck” postcards in my mailbox for a lot of years by now. Try some originality, some creativity. Especially the churches that try so stinking hard to convince you they’re relevant through their timely sermon topics. If you’re creative enough to have a sermon series riffing on the latest reality TV craze, you’re creative enough to say something other than “those guys suck, and we don’t.”
Second, it shows the church’s hand – they know full well that church isn’t working for people. In fact, that may be the precise reason they started their new church – so it wouldn’t suck. But they’re trashing the other churches in their area by doing this – in a cowardly, backhanded way. If they think other churches suck, they should say it straight up, instead of trying to sneak it in the back door by saying “We don’t suck.” The subtext is there, that they think the other churches do.
Third, like I said above, it’s almost always false advertising. O.k., I get it, there are boring, stiff, culturally stuck churches out there, and the people in our communities have had negative experiences there. But if you’re going to be audacious enough to say that you’re different, you’d better deliver the goods. I’ve been to a number of churches in which they’ve promised that they wouldn’t be what I’m expecting in a church. You know where I’m going . . . but wait for it . . . Almost universally, I find exactly what I’m expecting: a church that meets in an elementary school auditorium, a band that plays the worship top 40 with skill, PowerPoint lyrics with snazzy video backgrounds, a white dude on stage preaching, and a lot of awesome programs for the kids and youth. Hear me out, please – I don’t necessarily have a problem with any of those elements. (In fact, there’s one near my home that has most of those elements, but they’re the real deal, and have their missional heads screwed on pretty darn well). Just don’t try to convince me that you’re different than the other new churches in town that meet in elementary school auditoriums and do all the same stuff you do. You’re really all very similar – again, not necessarily a horrible thing . . . just not a different thing.
Finally, a fairly blunt one. When a church tries so hard to convince me they don’t suck, my instinctive first reaction is to think, “Wow, I bet they suck.” It may not be true. It’s just that when they try so hard to convince me of something, I have to wonder if they’re not really just trying to convince themselves. I have a very similar reaction when I hear someone try to convince me of how “relevant” their ministry/magazine/podcast/worship service is. It’s o.k., people. I’m sure you’re warm, welcoming, caring, genuine, and love God. Feel free to just leave it at that. Just be who you are . . . and please, if you’re going to have photos of people in your marketing pieces, make sure they actually go to your church.
Skye Jethani has a book out – “The Divine Commodity” which talks about about the failure of imagination… and ties this is into the branding/marketing that churches often settle for… it’s a good read… I’ll have a review up shortly
Why is it that many “churches” always use the consumer approach to getting more “butts in the pews”! I was once guilty of it. Now it seems rather trite. Are we interested in size, or hearts?
Shouldn’t any book titled “The Divine Commodity” at least be available as a free download?