I’ve been talking about the concept of becoming a goer with a friend lately and have decided to put a few concepts in line prior to taking this to a larger audience. You, the faithful few who follow my blog will get to see it first.
Church Marketing, Churchianity, Emerging Church, Leadership, Ministry, Reformission, The Environment, Web Development, community
One of the primary goals of a missional outreach (church, mission, seminar, whatever) is reaching the culture around it. The biggest flaw in most of these efforts is failing to contextualize the effort. This doesn’t mean becoming a gnarly, beer-swilling, foul-mouthed, party animal… it means strategically modifying your language, media, and style to match the culture and context into which you are reaching.
I’ve been having a difficult time lately with our attitudes as followers of “The Way” which is a 1st century euphemism for Christianity.
A new guide from the Church of England offers church leaders a template for a year-long programme of practical action to reduce their congregations’ carbon footprints, as energy prices head upwards.
My wife and I have been slaving away in the backyard of our new rented home for the last few weeks and now that sod and pavers are laid, it’s time for us to quickly get our raised bed garden planted before the springtime planting window escapes us. With that in mind I’ve been ripe with anticipation to reap the benefits of my home garden and have begun dreaming of the meals and dishes I plan to make with it.
Churchianity, Misc, Reformission, The Environment, community
In a recent post by Brian Jones titled “Should An Openly Homosexual Person Be Baptized? – Questions About Homosexuality (Part 3)
” he poses some difficult questions that the church has struggled with and continues to struggle. It amazes me how we respond to various types of sin and implement our own punishment on people, and then return home to our own well cared for basket of filth, acting like we’re so much better. He speaks of pastors who will refuse to baptize an openly gay person and compares that to refusing to baptize a smoker, drunk, obese, or otherwise enslaved person who although they feel their behavior is wrong, they still fall into regular patterns of misbehavior. Do we treat them the same way?
We at miletwo::network are convinced that part of the church’s drive to becoming relevant in this culture is its response to environmental responsibility and sustainability. On April 22nd we’ll be releasing a Going Green guide with some simple ideas for churches to implement as part of their environmental responsibility initiatives.
I never post goofy stuff, or email cheeky feel good powerpoints around. I’m about to break that rule because today, while looking for information about various bible translations I came across the story of Bill, the poor college student in a holey t-shirt with no shoes. He’s your target market folks. Get to work marketing to him. If I could say nothing else about “Vintage Jesus”, “Reformission” or sharing authentic faith with a real Jesus, if all you did was read the story below and be impacted by its message, that would be enough. I’ll shut up now so you can read it.
What’s the more important opportunity as Jesus marketers, the chance engagement with a stranger who’s not interested but that we might be able to reach with a well crafted message, or the neighbor who calls the church or goes to the web site looking for help or information?
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