miletwo::network

It was at least five or six years ago when I first saw that monotone halo surrounding those curly locks on a mannequine at Urban Outfitters. “Jesus is my homeboy…” HA!  I laughed! My immediate reaction was… “yea… he’s definitely my homeboy too.”  Little did I know how radically diverse the reactions would be to this simple but powerful statement.

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.

For those 2 of you out there that follow my blog regularly (okay, one is actually my wife but who’s counting), you know that I often reference posts from the Church Marketing Lab, aka churchmarketingsucks.com.  Lately I haven’t read a ton there that made me say “huh…” but one of today’s posts piqued my interest.

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?

Continuing our series on applying the principles learned from Andy Stanley’s book titled Communicating for a Change to church web development projects, we come to this section titled Internalize the Message. What do you think it means to internalize the message? To borrow from the underlying theme of this site, which is church marketing, you have to first believe the message before you can communicate the message and you pretty much have to know what you’re going to say before you start to speak.

It’s interesting to me, how much of a secular author’s rants on marketing apply to our activities as saints.  Seth Godin is spot on again in a recent post titled “Would we miss you?“.  He of course asks the question with respect to business/client relationship to demonstrate the importance of being exceptional in what we do.  I can’t even believe how much more important the work that we’re doing is from an eternal perspective, and yet for most of us our efforts in ministry are so terribly “back burner.”

I just finished reading David Alan Black’s latest post titled Confessions of a Missional Greek Prof wherein he relates his thoughts about living as a Missional Christian.  One quote in particular made me think about this site, its purpose, and my mission on earth.

If we really believe in the Gospel, what should we be doing to advance it? What is the church, and how can we help it transform society?

I think the reason this spoke to me so much is that lately I’ve been wondering what I’m doing here… I mean right here, on this site.  Am I writing for myself or for others? I know people are coming to the site (thanks to Google Analytics) but I don’t know if anything I’m writing is having an impact on anybody? I carried these emotions all the way down the page as I read words that echoed a sentiment I’ve been feeling myself.  Paul labored to instruct churches, encourage missional thinking, and promote the spread of the gospel.  I believe I’m working toward a similar goal.

A recent missive by marketing guru Seth Godin reminded me of the importance of establishing a marketable brand in our communications and marketing outreach efforts. I think it’s the reason why churches with names like Mars Hill, Rock Harbor, and The Open Door are succeeding in reaching the community in ways that First Baptist of Lalaland never will. It speaks directly to how unmemorable names with common english words are, using words like: community, zone, church, first, whatever.

I sat in church on Sunday, the awesome day of His resurrection and all I could think about was Lost. Now before you start thinking to yourself how un-spiritual I am (even though you’re probably right, I am an idiot) allow me to explain. As I surveyed the crowd gathered together on this day when we as believers fully recognize and are overjoyed at the gift of our salvation made possible by Jesus death, I couldn’t help but notice the scattered pockets of those in our midst who were clearly not along for the ride. I wondered at where they were in their journey to find Truth and if what we were doing together in that room was helping them, or were we pushing them backward?