Marketing Strategy III

Don’t miss National Back to Church Sunday!

(ht David Fitch, Rick Meigs)

“Back to Church Sunday” is aimed at reaching the unchurched and dechurched — people who used to go to church, but don’t any more. The campaign is based on a simple idea. If you ask unchurched people to come with you to church–mostly likely they’ll say yes. Many dechurched people are a simple re-invitation away.

There are probably people and churches for whom this is effective. If so, great!

The failure to acknowledge or address the issues behind declining attendance leaves the impression that this campaign is either oblivious or indifferent to the real attitudes of the unchurched and dechurched.

If you are churched, why aren’t you inviting more people to church?
If you are unchurched, are you interested in attending with a friend?
If you are dechurched, will this strategy reach you? Why or why not?

Marketing Strategy II

A church, new to our town within the past year, held an evangelistic crusade last month.  They brought in several christian music groups and speakers.  The crusade was held at a community facility with seating capacity for a large crowd.  Posters were hung around town and in surrounding towns. There were several billboards and television ads. Radio ads played on both the local rock station and the christian station.  A lot of money was spent on creating and marketing this event (rumored between $50,000-100,000).

From the posters…

3 days of special gospel speakers,
praise & worship,
personal testimonies,
& concerts.

The turnout was under 50 people, Christians.
The lost did not attend.
What went wrong?

Marketing Strategy

I drove past this sign the other day on a sidewalk beside a busy street in the middle of a weekday afternoon.

There was a small group of people gathered waiting.
(About half this many people and there did not appear to be food.)

Really? Who is the target audience?
Would you stop?

Putting Away Childish Things – A Review

“In this compelling tale, we meet Kate—a popular religion professor at a liberal arts college. In the classroom, students ask for her views on Jesus, the Bible, and homosexuality, controversial topics that Kate candidly addresses.
Putting Away Childish Things is an engaging way for readers to learn about the important issues dividing Christians today. Along the way, we join with the characters to ask the hard questions such as what does the Bible really teach? Who is Jesus? What is the nature of faith today?”

On the heels of finishing my summer classes, I indulged my taste for fiction with Marcus Borg’s first fiction book, Putting Away Childish Things. The request to review this book coincided nicely with my 3-week summer break.

I have not read any of Borg’s other books (sorry Mr. Borg), but I recall his name coming up in controversial contexts. Rather than running a preliminary theological background check, I chose to encounter and consider Borg’s ideas as he presented them in this novel. Therefore my review will be limited to the ideas as presented in this book without consideration of Borg’s larger body of writing.

First, the story and writing were better than I expected, particularly for a first novel and a teaching novel.  Conflict over Kate’s pending career decision kept the story engaging to the end. The other characters in the story are interesting, representing a spectrum of beliefs including fundamentally conservative Amy, progressively liberal Fiona, skeptical beret-wearing Andrew, and openly-searching Erin.  Their differing perspectives are presented in conversations and in classroom discussions. 

The teaching themes within the novel include how to understand the Bible, Adam and Eve and original sin, the Christmas stories, Jesus and the gospels, the Bible’s teachings about homosexuality, the meaning of “believe” and so forth.  I can almost guarantee that you will find something you disagree with and possibly some things you do agree with.  The ideas are not presented with a strongly persuasive tone which allowed for an examination of the issues that did not feel coercive or overbearing.

One of the things I really appreciated was the influence of liturgy throughout the book.  It reminded me of how drawn I am to the grounding beauty of this daily practice.  The other thing that I really liked was the emphasis on the experience of relationship with God.  While there may be disagreement over interpretive issues regarding Scripture, there is common ground in a shared understanding of the importance of knowing God.

One of the things the book does well is present views of Scripture that are an alternative to a strident biblicism that insists on historical, factual inerrancy.  Sincere, believing Christians can disagree about these things without leaving the foundation of truth or their love of Scripture.   A few of the ideas discussed in the book that I did not agree with were the creation story as a metaphor,  the story of Christ’s birth as a parable, and some questions raised about the interpretation of the gospels.  However, in spite of my disagreement, the examination of a different perspective was interesting and challenging.

There must be room within faith to ask questions and explore our personal theology.  The truth, significance, and reality of God’s story was never intended to be reduced to examination as a scientific document.  If you are interested in these ideas, you would enjoy Putting Away Childish Things. Borg’s book does a good job of explaining the difference between truth and factuality.

“People often get fixated on factuality: either things happened this way, or these stories aren’t true. Stories can be important, meaningful, truth-filled, and truthful without being factual.”

What do you think of this?
How important is factual accuracy to your faith?

Moving East

The following passage describes the shift I have experienced in my understanding of Scripture. I find it interesting that Eastern Orthodoxy and Anabaptists, both traditions that were marginalized by western christianity, are beginning to become more widely acknowledged for their contributions to doctrine and theology.

In the Western churches, both Catholic and Protestant, sin, grace, and salvation are seen primarily in legal terms. God gave humans freedom, they misused it and broke God’s commandments, and now deserve punishment. God’s grace results in forgiveness of the transgression and freedom from bondage and punishment.

The Eastern churches see the matter in a different way. For Orthodox theologians, humans were created in the image of God and made to participate fully in the divine life. The full communion with God that Adam and Eve enjoyed meant complete freedom and true humanity, for humans are most human when they are completely united with God.

The result of sin, then, was a blurring of the image of God and a barrier between God and man. The situation in which mankind has been ever since is an unnatural, less human state, which ends in the most unnatural aspect: death. Salvation, then, is a process not of justification or legal pardon, but of reestablishing man’s communion with God. This process of repairing the unity of human and divine is sometimes called “deification.” This term does not mean that humans become gods but that humans join fully with God’s divine life.

Beautiful! and not new or unorthodox.

(Quote from ReligionFacts.)