"Marketing" the Church

The other night, Kari and I were talking about Braums, the ice cream and dairy store we both grew up on in Oklahoma. (They have them in Texas too). Braums was one of the two places we had to stop when we pulled into Oklahoma from Missouri. Their milk, ice cream, and other dairy products are the best, plain and simple. Even today when Kari needs milk, she drives several miles out of her way to get Braums milk, because it's the best. We don't drink anything else.

The problem with Braums is that nobody knows how good they are. Their advertisements are lousy, the color scheme inside their stores is left over from a scheme that wasn't even cool in the 80s, and the help is rarely friendly or well-trained. Every time we drive by a Braums store, Kari mentions that they ought to hire her to do their marketing and branding. She doesn't have any training, but she's convinced that if the rest of the world wasn't scared off by the rough exterior, everyone would want Braums milk. (So, if you're a Braums exec, please get in touch with my wife).

Yet, as Kari and I talked about Braums, we noticed a different extreme too. On one hand, Braums' marketing stands in the way of a great product, so nobody goes there. On the other hand, there is another fast food restaurant in the area that has tremendous marketing (Let's call them "Smack-in-the-Fox" to protect the guilty). Their ads are funny, creative, engaging, and eye catching. The only problem is, the food is absolutely, positively, awful.

I see a lot of churches like each of these stores. We have the Message that changes lives. Yet, we often go to either extreme as we are salt and light for the rest of the world. Some of our church-people are like Braums. If you can suffer through the rough exterior, you'll find something extraordinarily impressive. But you would never be attracted to that person, or seek that person out. The only way you would know about it is if an insider you respect pointed you to them.

On the other hand, it seems to be trendy for a lot of churches to be just like "Smack-in-the-Fox" these days. They want to be masters of marketing. They buy radio spots, and billboard space, and canvass neighborhoods with well-done flyers and invitations. And yet you show up and find that what they're serving doesn't even resemble meat. Nothing truly life-changing is ever communicated. The Gospel? Forget it.

See, the tension of the Christian life is a whole lot like the difference between Braums and "Smack-in-the-Fox." The Message is what's really important. We need to live it well, being dilligent to communicate it well to others. But we need to make sure that "it" is the thing we're inviting people to see.