Let me start by saying that I think a churches need to put their best foot forward with how they present themselves to church goers and visitors. There are a lot of churches with a lazy attitude towards excellence saying, “Jesus didn’t use power point, so why should we even care how it looks.”
That is true, Jesus did not use power point, you got me there.
Jesus did however have the distinct advantage of being perfect in every way, especially when it came to relating to people. So to even try and use him in the same sentence as, “why should we even care” is asinine.
So just know, I am on the side of doing things with excellence and making stuff look freaking ama-zazing.
There is an apparent problem with the Church right now in that it is becoming so consumed with marketing itself to people it is forgetting a major entity in the connection of people to faith in Jesus. We as the Church have started to peddle Jesus as a product. A trinket that we can put in our pocket and use when we need fresh breath. A bracelet for when we do not want the opposite sex to hit on us. The American Christ has become product that the Church uses to ensnare its community into coming to that specific place of worship.
When Jesus was giving His sermon on the mount dissertation He wanted us to get a glimpse into how He sees the world. That whole message was one of upside down living, “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.” If that is not a case for, “Seriously, turn the world on its ear and start living for me,” I don’t know what is.
It is as if we have thrown the Jesus of the Bible right out and replaced Him with a functional savior for a specific demographic. Since when did Christ say to only hit; 20-somethings, who make 50-70k a year, who drive hybrids and wear pink sweaters on fridays. We are called to reach people, not a specific demo.
A church can waste thousands of dollars trying send out push cards to their community, flyers for events, lawn signs for “Church Awareness”. In the end it amounts to a very small gain and very large default of cash. Instead of vying for peoples eyes and sexing up our events, we should be in the streets, hitting the ground running trying to fill the void of connecting Christ to the people in the midst of all the crap that is going on in their lives.
I know of a church here in my town that is trying to just that. They are a missions minded church with the goal of casting a net over global and local missions. One event that is really upside down is this month they are canceling church on Sunday to go into their local neighborhood that the church is connected with so that the whole church can take part in not just throwing money at a situation or missionary but to actually be Christ to people: cleaning their gutters, mowing their lawns, praying for people, all of this to support that claim that we the church care for people just as Jesus cared for us.
A friend of mine told me the other day, “I call them friend, but we don’t bbq or anything like that.” He said it to illustrate a point that we sometimes call people friends but it is more of a social networking term we hold in our pocket just in case we need to use it so as not to look unappealing.
Start loving people, start as a church to cut back on excess frivolous spending on trying to reach people through commercials, postcard mailers, even your bulletins you hand out every week (news flash, people do not keep them, they glance at them when they are bored or disengaged and then throw the bulletin away). Start by honestly taking a look at how you can tactilely make a difference in your communities that would bring people a unmodern, unsexy version of Christ but a more real interpretation of His goodness and mercy.
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