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.