Filed under: life | Tags: church marketing sucks, lifechurch.tv, voice mail
This morning I came across a post on a blog I recently discovered and enjoy: Church Marketing Sucks. The post is called “Dealing With Your Church’s Bad Drivers,” and it’s a little story with big implications.
The post directs you to this site to listen to the voice mail left by a driver who was peeved by a woman who was thinking more about her appearance than the people around her – or so the story goes.
My response, as posted on the CMS blog, was this:
i just listened to the voice mail and the caller was 100% right. i’d be pissed, too, if i was in his shoes. the lady point-blank put herself above everyone else by holding up the line.
this kind of stuff is why i am a fan of 1 Jn. 3:18. or as Francis said (paraphrase), “preach without ceasing, use words if you have to.”
i don’t think a program, sermon, or series of sermons will remedy a person that doesn’t get what Jesus was saying when he talked about putting people ahead of your interests.
that’s just the frig’n Word Of God, man! either folks get it or they don’t.
plus, i’d like to say that christianese marketing materials are 99.9% always bad or wrong or in bad taste. take a listen to all star united’s “la la land” and that’s pretty much my sentiment.
if the christian faith is ever to be taken seriously again on a mass level – and it is not right now – then all the shine has to be wiped off, and an authentic Jesus must be presented. Jesus is not presented on a license plate cover, sticker, t-shirt, etc.
The feedback that has been left by other readers has really shocked me because the voicemail guy is being portrayed as a guy who just wanted something to complain about, and some have gone so far as to laugh about the story, belittling it.
I will walk a fine line here between speaking truth and judgment, but it would appear that these folks A.) do not know or live by 1 Jn. 3:18, and B.) do not know or practice the discipline Jesus teaches regarding being given bigger responsibilities after small responsibilities.
Why does it matter if Voice Mail Man was a blow-hard? Is he somehow not important to the Kingdom because he was annoyed by a person who found it important to advertise what church she was affiliated with and stomp on his time? Is he not important because he sounds like an older Baby Boomer who fits some mold for grumpy-old-man? I don’t picture Jesus laughing this man’s point off. This man experienced a small moment that wasn’t set up, practiced, presented with lights and graphics… this was real for him. It was a small moment with huge implications.
Those small moments are the gateway, the very point of entry to putting Scripture into action, and hopefully eventually into relationships.
That some people would see this as something to laugh about or belittle speaks volumes of the community they are part of. It is a community that values the whole and not the sum of it’s parts – I’ll call it’ Gestalt Christianity! I can see the t-shirts, stage graphics, fog machines, lights, bumper stickers, license plate frames, web banners, music CD’s inspired by _________ artist, and so on.
