Tuesday, October 25, 2005

The New Gospel: Marketing Purpose & Passion

Marketing is one of those issues that seems to have taken the evangelical, baby-boomer dominated church by storm. I guess that I find myself skeptical about the reliance on the formulas and techniques. It feels like manipulation. To some degree, all churches “market” – we make things as comfortable as possible, we clean the bathrooms, carefully monitor the temperature. We also make every effort to communicate well and keep the message understandable and interesting -- but we don’t need any of these to really communicate the message. Didn’t Jesus say something about people knowing what we are about as followers of Jesus because of our demonstrated love for one another? Dick Staub brings to light the marketing machine that seems to be taking the christian world by storm. Sounds like we might soon be able to do away with the Holy Spirit. Yeah, I’ve heard the admonition that “God is using it so just be quiet”, yet it still feels like manipulation and I wonder about the purity of motives. Staub links to a disturbing article - it seems that it may be sooner than we think that we will need to have a marketing background to be a shepherd of Jesus' flock.

2 comments:

Mike Perrigoue said...

Tim,

I must say I'm impressed with your courage to speak out against market driven churches. Most pastors won't...or even more frightening...don't know to.

Does the rest of the eldership at your church believe as you do? Are you all on the same page?

Sorry for the million questions. I live in Bothell and am looking for a solid church that will preach and teach God's word and not cater to felt-needs. No easy-believism for me thank you.

Bothell to Bellevue (almost Issaquah) isn't sounding so far for sound teaching...

Let me know...

Gnarlypop said...

Thanks for the encouragement. I have to point out that my views do not necessarily reflect the view everyone at Crossroads Bible Church. I'm the Executive Pastor, not Senior (preaching) Pastor. Jerry Mitchell's messages are verse-by-verse exposition. He doesn't say much publicly about the market-driven issue. We do seek to depend on the Spirit ... but all of us can find ourselves subtly drawn to the dependence on something else.

You can download messages from Jerry Mitchell at http://www.cbccross.org/Services/Sermons.htm..