Sunday, May 06, 2007

Your Church Marketing Sucks

Eastertide

Any account of the Christian story that begins with the issue of my own individual, personal salvation can never speak prophetically to the fact that I remain a selfish bastard. Such a religion cannot reform my consumerist, self-interested mindset, because it is a religion grounded in self-interest. It teaches us to worry about our own "souls" and to consider how the religion can make our lives better - to help us be better versions of the kind of people we think we should be.

If we are saved by that kind of religion, we are yet damned.

Every new church start-up that sends out postcards or rents these billboards that proclaim, "Church was never meant to be boring," or make some claim to fulfill our middle class aspirations as they are, might really be serving as instruments of God's judgment by compounding those selfish tendencies. How about, "Get on board with what God's doing in the world?"

And yes, there is a billboard on New Circle Road right now that depicts someone leaping into the air with the caption, "church was never meant to be boring."

Christ have mercy.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did the billboard by chance refer to a particular church, or was it one of those -

"......blah blah blah......."

-God


?

J/K...either way that is also a pet peeve of mine.

Kyle said...

Yes, but I can't remember the name. It's called New Life Center or something like that. They sent two direct mailings in the lead up to Easter (otherwise known as Lent).

Anonymous said...

Amen and Amen.

Oh, and this was hilarious...I need to write it down to remember it later: "They sent two direct mailings in the lead up to Easter (otherwise known as Lent)."