Recently I posted a video entitled What if Starbucks Marketed Like a Church? I got a lot of good reactions from the video, and it’s best you watch it prior to reading this post, although not necessary. It really made me (and many others) think about how scary church marketing tactics really are — and how inauthentic and fake many church folks are. Remember, this blog does not exist to bash the church as an organism (the true Church, the Body of Christ), but to critique the church as an organization — which it was never intended to be.
I saw a great article over at Church Marketing Sucks entitled Tony Morgan Thinks Churches Should Stop Marketing.
Tony Morgan, chief strategic officer at NewSpring Church in Anderson, S.C., co-author of the Simply Strategic Series, former pastor at Granger Community Church and author of the soon-to-be-released Killing Cockroaches (and we’ve interviewed Tony and linked to him on dozens of occasions), says that marketing is evil and your church should stop.
So what is Tony talking about? Essentially, he says ministry trumps marketing. If we try to fix the church’s problems with marketing, we’re going to fail. The article says:
“Direct mail won’t fix your problem. Billboards won’t fix your problem. Neither will platform announcements or bulletin ads or bumper stickers. At some point marketing may be a good option, but until you answer the right questions, marketing could be what’s preventing your success.
If your church has stopped growing, marketing is not your solution. If you have stopped seeing life change, marketing is not the answer.”
And to that, we say amen.
But as much as we love Tony, he’s a little off base.
The articles goes on to disagree with Morgan and explains why churches should continue marketing. However, I think Morgan is correct. Tony Morgan also recommends that people stop reading the Church Marketing Sucks blog. I’m going to take his advice. Morgan goes on to say:
Marketing is becoming a barrier to the advancement of the Gospel message. It’s becoming a hindrance for the church. Ministry is being negatively impacted because churches are attempting to use marketing tactics to reach people for Jesus and help them take steps in their faith. [emphasis added]
AMEN! Why does the church continue to use the methods of the world to reach people for Christ? Jesus very simply (and literally) said,
“Then having gone, disciple all nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things, whatever I commanded you. And, behold, I am with you all the days until the completion of the age. Amen” (Matthew 29:19-20, LITV).
Note that “Go” is not a command in the Great Commission in the original Greek, it is best translated “having gone” or “while [you are] going”. The only command here is to disciple, and then the methods of doing so are given: baptizing and teaching. So while you are going, disciple everyone in the world by baptizing and teaching them. Then Jesus gives us a great promise: I’m not leaving you alone to do this, I am with you. That’s awesome!
You see, it is assumed that we will go about our business — life happens. But as we go, we are to disciple people along the way.
Understanding discipleship is helpful. Discipleship is not a church program or agenda, nor is it a curriculum that can be completed and finished with a spiritual gifts inventory and placement into a church program or activity. Discipling goes beyond witnessing, it’s the nurturing of a new Christian’s faith and the parenting of the new Christian into maturity. This cannot be effectively accomplished by investing one hour per week into someone or by having them complete a workbook. Jesus traveled, ate, slept, and hung out with his twelve disciples for three years prior to sending them His Spirit and cutting them loose. Paul spent three years in Arabia prior to preaching the Gospel in Damascus (Galatians 1:17). Many others are prepared by intense mentoring prior to being sent into leadership roles in various churches.
The pattern and example is clear: discipleship only occurs by investing time into people’s lives and walking with them through the daily grind of life — the good and bad times. This can’t be taught in a program or agenda, this can only be lived. The institutional church has done a great job at filling the minds of young men with vast amounts of knowledge yet leaving them with only infant-level emotional maturity (these men lead many institutional churches today). It has done a great job at allowing complacent Americans to remain willfully ignorant of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ. You cannot possibly disciple people adequately without forming deep relationships with them.
But this cannot be done with our culture’s capitalist focus on church growth. Rapid growth is expected, and it is measured by weekly attendance and giving totals. People are viewed as being either assets or liabilities, and the board of Elders spends more time examining budget proposals and accounting worksheets than it does praying that the church’s “love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that [it] may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ—to the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:9-11). This blame is put on all who view the church as an organization rather than as an organism, not just pastors and leaders. Many times pastors understand that this is wrong but must comply with his or her congregation’s wishes to grow, Grow, GROW!
So how should we “make disciples” if we don’t use marketing tactics? How will we get people to come to church? The same way Jesus drew crowds of thousands who were willing to listen to Him speak without food for three days: word-of-mouth. Of course this involves telling people about Jesus as you are going (not about your church), and does not take kindly to a “Come and See” approach which most churches advocate.
Instead of sending a direct mailer to the community, why not focus on discipling a small group of core people and watching their lives be transformed. When this happens, they won’t be able to help but tell people about Jesus and what He has done in their lives. Instead of support-raising money to purchase a building and “praying in faith” for God to pay the bills, take your small group of people and meet in the intimacy of your home regularly until your living room can no longer accommodate the guests. This may take three years or more, but exercising patience and doing things in God’s timing is better than using worldly marketing tactics to plant churches in some man-made “cookie-cutter” pattern. Instead of finding musicians to lead worship without really getting to know and disciple them, first spend time with them to determine if they have a heart of worship or simply a passion for music. It is better to have a mediocre musician with a heart for worship on an acoustic guitar with no sound system than to have a full praise band of talented musicians and great sound but no depth or revelation of Jesus Christ behind it. Granted, talented musicians can create an “atmosphere” or “mood” that misguided Christians call “worship”, but true worship has far more to do with how we live on Monday than how we sing on Sunday. You need to be sure that your worship leader spends more time talking to God than he or she does talking about God, and this will be evident in the way they live.
Finally, churches need to cultivate a passion for God in their fellow Christ-followers. Many pastors and churches have a passion for evangelism, or for missions, or for preaching, or for whatever. . . . but few simply have a passion for God. Without that, all other passions are useless preoccupations with man-made strategies. Paul Washer says this well in his message entitled “Jesus Christ is Not a Yuppie’s Accessory”, which I recommend you all watch (click the title to see the video).
What we need is for all true Christians to realize that they are ministers, literally “servants.” We are not here to lead others, Christ can handle that Himself. We are here to point others to the only Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ Himself. We do this by a life of service and sacrifice, not by a life marked by pride and organizational development. There is no such thing as a “part-time Christian.” Christianity makes you a new creation, it is not just a mere belief shift — it changes who you are. When you become a Christian, you become a full-time minister, your job is your mission field. Your life is now all about Christ. As Paul Washer says in his above-mentioned message, Jesus Christ is not an accessory to your life — He IS your life!
There are too many Christians who claim Christ as their Master but deny this by how they live — myself included. But I am dedicated to becoming the man Christ has created me to be, and I must die to my flesh daily in order to accomplish that (more on this in a future post). Christianity 2.0 is the awakening of the true followers of Jesus. People are beginning to realize that the way we “do church” doesn’t work — the whole system is flawed. Christianity 2.0 is about returning the focus of Christianity to the people, not to organizational needs and challenges. Christ came to seek and save lost people, not to set up divisive administrations with complex bylaws and governmental legislation. We must stop focusing on man-made strategy (marketing) and start seeking how we can serve others (ministry).
I’m going to close with the lyrics to a song entitled “Expectations” by Caedmon’s Call / Andrew Osenga. It’s on Caedmon’s Overdressed album to which you should definitely listen. My wife wept when she first heard this song, it touched my heart when I first heard it as well, because we both identify with this completely:
that boy had the highest of expectations
and he heard that Jesus would fill him up
maybe something got lost in the language
if this was full, then why bother?this was not the way it looked on the billboard
smiling family beaming down on the interstateand you know that we all try to blame someone
when our dreams won’t rise up from their sleep
and the reaching of the steeple felt like one more
expensive ad for something cheapthis was not the way it looked on the billboard
smiling family beaming down on the interstatehe dressed up nice for the congregation
scared somebody’s gonna find him out
through the din and the clatter of the hallelujahs
a stained-glass Jesus sings.this was not the way it looked on the billboard
smiling family beaming down on the interstate
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{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
“It is better to have a mediocre musician with a heart for worship on an acoustic guitar with no sound system than to have a full praise band of talented musicians and great sound but no depth or revelation of Jesus Christ behind it.”
That hasn’t been the easiest conclusion to come to as a musician, as I would always fantasize about what my “dream worship music” would sound like. God has helped me to learn to let that stuff go, and to embrace the truth of your words I just quoted. Ultimately, the sound boards and ppro musicians and everything else are for our own entertainment, not for the Lord. He isn’t impressed by how we sound, but by the condition of our hearts. God has also shown us that much like the way Christians are incorporating the use of the web and blogs and such in their simple-church networking, there is now much you can do in terms of playing, recording and sharing music just with your pc. Technology really allows you to do all kinds of stuff that wasn’t possible just a decade ago. We’ve begun to mess around with recording some stuff of our own, an exciting journey to be beginning, one that would never even be possible if we were limiting ourselves musically to our involvement in a conventional church.
You’re really putting all the pieces together, aren’t you?…
P.S. – Do you still check your drummer blog?…..
Hey Daniel. It has taken me awhile to come to that conclusion as well. Us musicians take longer on that one
Yes I still check the drummer blog (http://drumapprentice.blogspot.com), but I post on it rarely because it only has one reader per day on average, plus I hardly have time to post on my other blogs.
Technology is amazing. I am hoping to get a Mac next to utilize GarageBand and play with recording more. I only have one good quality song I’ve written, but it’d be fun to record it. We’ll see. . . .
Not so fast you two.
We are to tithe from our first fruits, the best of the harvest and our offerings. Worship is the offering of our gifts and time and talents in acknowledging that God is worthy … and we aren’t. I would agree that simplicity can be God honoring, but so also can excellence in the worship arts (AV, lights, art, music, instruments, poetry). The church has clasically been afraid of the arts because we artists are a bit difficult to control … but that doesn’t suggest a change of theology to giving God less than our best just so we can control those around us.
God is indeed the focus of worship, but he gave us the church as a gift, a gift of fellowship and corporate worship, and vision of the future of enternal worship. Trust me when i say we won’t be doing classical guitar on a barstool for all eternity … I’m betting every style of music, video, art you name it will be seen in eternal worship arts.
The problem worship artists have is taking themselves too serious. We all think we’re indispensable … we aren’t.
Dalton – I don’t think either of us are arguing against a more expanded use of different mediums or forms of artistic expression to glorify God, but I’d say the point is that as a the body, we don’t need to spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to do that in a corporate setting. Just making worship into a bigger spectacle, or a slicker presentation, doesn’t automatically translate into a deeper experience of worship. (which seems to be the prevelant assumption in churches today…) I’d have to say that in this country, we’ve become obsessed with trying to mimick the “professionalism” of the world, thinking that doing this means giving our “firstfruits”, or our “best”. I think God is more interested in our hearts, in our being vulnerable and real when we worship, than if we hit every note perfectly. I think of David playing songs on his harp in the fields, with no one but God to listen. It wasn’t about a big production, it was about the content and authenticity of what he sang… I’m not sure what you meant by changing our theology, but the focus of many of Prayeramedic’s posts has been to return to a BIBLICAL approach to every facet of what it means to be the church, (and many of ours have been as well…), even if that means going against some of the traditions that have arisen over the centuries…
From my perspective, the current emphasis being put on the expensive, corporate kinds of worship (the kind that requires a special building, a sound system, etc.) has actually hindered the broader, more all-inclusive approach to worship (which you described) from taking shape. Conventional church services are anything but participatory save the few people on stage, and because there is such an obsession with perfection, most people are dissuaded from bringing what they have to offer if it doesn’t fit with the approved style and level of professionalism.
As far as what kind of worship we’ll be doing in eternity, do you actually think we’ll still be using computers or technology in the eternal Kingdom? (in order to do things like video…) Not gonna be dogmatic about this, but I seriously doubt it! Whatever it ends up looking like, I’m sure it will be incredible, but not because of a focus on any of the technical aspects, but because of the hearts of the people worshipping their King forever!
P.S. – I only asked about the drummer blog cuz I’m a drummer too, and have been wondering if you have any tips on tuning my drums… (mine are sounding pretty aweful lately…)
Well said Daniel (P.S. I’ll try to post on tuning drums over at Drum Apprentice soon).
Hey Steve, I see what you’re saying about giving God our best, I don’t know if I’d use the tithe analogy (see what the Bible teaches about tithing at this prayeramedic post), but I certainly believe we should give God our best and do all we can to glorify Him with excellence. My point was not meant to dissuade churches from using professional musicians, but to dissuade them from using professional musicians relatively new to the faith if a mediocre musician is available who has a true heart of worship. Worship is not a “mood” or “aura” good musicians can artificially create on Sunday morning, that is simply the natural emotional capability of music. I can create that aura while playing some Blues as well. Worship is how we live our lives, and it is far more concerned with our hearts (motives) than the outward expression (acts seen before others).
I’m all for a great sounding worship group, but my point is that too many churches aim for a good sound without considering the heart condition of those on the stage. I know several people who play for larger churches in the area who gig Saturday night and get trashed while doing so then go play or sing with the worship band Sunday morning. The leadership team needs to interact with these musicians outside of church, get to know them, etc. Us musicians typically are not afraid to be ourselves, and you can learn a lot about me if you spend a little time with me. Too many pastors hear a great guitarist with a good voice and put him on stage because he can create an artificial “feeling” that church people have mistakenly learned to call worship. As I said in the article above:
Where this really comes into play is allowing members to participate. Too many people are not allowed to sing a solo piece or come sing in the choir because they don’t sound good enough. Granted, if the church is run like an organization instead of being treated like an organism this is a huge problem, a complete lack of professionalism. But notice the subtle deception here: you must be a professional to worship God and lead others to do so. Everyone is called to worship God — every day of the week!
This cannot be accommodated until the church breaks away from professionalism, which creates a veil of inauthenticity and places clergy on a pedestal that is unbiblical, and embraces church as a community of people that has nothing to do with the building or sound system.
Remember the poor lady who gave two mites? How does this fit in with the tithing/giving God your firstfruits model of worship? Although she had very little, Jesus considered her to have given the most, because it was all she had. Those who were rich gave from their wealth, just as us musicians give from our musical talent. And God honors that and appreciates us, but He also appreciates the lady who can’t make it through her solo because she is moved to tears, the older gentleman singing a special piece who can’t quite hit a few high notes, and the choir of children who can’t pay attention long enough to sing the first verse of their sing-a-long. God loves all of it and enjoys it when EVERY member participates in His Body.
I can see your points. It would appear we’ve done similar routes through the church Dan.
In 1990 I was a part-time worship leader for a small 100 member church trying the “seeker” thing early on. We had some terrific talent and it was my job to keep them from hurting each other with their egos. I loved it and we all grew a ton. I felt bad at times that the congregation didn’t get to worship like we as a worship team did. They saw the finished package, we got to laugh, mess up, argue, debate, and cry together before we got to Sunday.
I then left worship arts for many years, partly from hurts and partly because I thoroughly love having a microphone and was conflicted with what this meant about me.
In 2000 I once again became a part time worship leader here in Valparaiso, and man was it fast and furious. Much better balanced worship theology, but lots of artsy attitudes and a church that was struggling to try new tastes and preferences. Once again I grew the most, and my own sense of awe, wonder, fear and worship worthiness became a stronger staple in my own walk. The downside of course is that worship arts in churches are crazy and I got stepped on by the staff, when they most needed someone to throw under the bus.
I actually stayed around for two more years at that church, thinking that I was learning to be a follower and that God was teaching me that hiding my gifts was part of humility. We eventually left, when the church decided to play an instrumental role in attacking my business too.
I know it’s a long comment, but the key is that we go through season of worship and maturity. Those in worship ride those cycles quickly, because the arts are so passionate. I look forward to ministering in worship again someday, and think that once again I’ll grow the most when I do. Excellence and tithing our first fruits is tough in a society of quick, packaging, spin, and public relations. I think we both know what goes on behind the scenes, and maybe just maybe worship leaders need to let their church families see more of that … the transparency, the range of emotions, the desire to excel in honor of God, but the clash of body party that ensues when we actually do real and authentic church
I’m sorry, I just don’t understand your comment about looking forward to ministering in worship again someday….
There is nothing to prevent you from worshipping God through music right now… (and I purposefully make the distinction between worhsip through music, and worship in general. Because worship, like Dan already said, isn’t limited to music, or even the arts overall…)
Perhaps you’d experience even more freedom if you are able to let go of the idea of a “worship leader” altogether… There are no examples of such a person in scripture, and I think it’s an example of something we’ve created that actually hinders a more full expression and exploration within the body as a whole. You don’t need an audience to be worshipping. You don’t need a stage. You don’t need a microphone. You don’t need a band. All those things are fine, but if you reach the point where you believe they are indespensible, then they are better left behind…
I feel your pain, Steve. I’ve been stabbed by several churches when it comes to this stuff. I think Daniel’s comment summed it up well. We really need to question the entire way we do church, including have a group of people lead others in song.
Ephesians 5:19-20 says, “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Colossians 3:16 says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.”
These are not things that need to have a stage or platform, a set aside band, etc. I know people justify this model from the Israelite temple and worship of the ark of the covenant, but we must also remember that in the synagogues any adult male could preach and anyone was welcome to “lead out” in song. If we want to follow their example, the same should be true today. . . .
I can totally identify with being burned by church, Steve. I also remained in a setting after being ridiculed thinking I was submitting to authority, not realizing what they were doing was abusive. When we make the church an organization, it encounters tons of problems totally foreign to the New Testament, but when it functions as a community (the way it was intended to), we still have tons of problems, but they are the same problems addressed in Paul’s letters. We then have clear scriptural guidelines for dealing with these issues.