Many of you know that I recently attended a writer’s conference in Redding, California. Many of you also know that I have been home for about three weeks and haven’t written a thing. Part of that has to do with the fact that I decided to identify with popular culture by participating with the virus that has swept La Plata County. In addition to record snow, slick streets and the daily video-game experience of avoiding cavernous potholes – our little piece of heaven has decided to host an unruly bug that sets every joint on fire and has made 80% of La Plata County a personal phlegm factory. Did I mention that the second conference I attended in Redding had, as part of its focus, how to pray for sick people? I doubt that my name will appear on any marketing material. (Promotional Brochure: Comments from Redding attendees! CJ from Durango writes: “I have had writer’s block since I attended your writer’s conference…The healing conference made me sick.”)
I have just presented you with a marketing problem. What are you to do when there is a disconnect between a great product and a poor spokesperson? Good question. Let’s look at another marketing problem…
We have all experienced a menu that is well-packaged, sometimes with mouth-watering pictures, only to be served a pile of food that bears no resemblance to what our hungry eyes have been promised. In this case, the product that was promised looked great but the received product turned out to be hideous.
So, how many chances do you give a restaurant to provide you with good service, tasty food, and a reasonable bill? If your answer is: “More than once,” then I do not want you to pick a spot for us to eat. Mercy has no place in the choice of food establishments. Why pay for misery? In this example, you have a bad product that you are trying to cleverly market and that is known as a pig in a poke. (Note: “Pig in a poke”, an old Scottish colloquialism, is equivalent to the Latin “caveat emptor” i.e. “buyer beware”. A poke was a small bag roughly the size that would hold a small pig. To purchase the bag without seeing the pig led to another colloquialism, i.e. “letting the cat out of the bag.” I have come to believe that almost every dining experience is a potential pig in a poke – especially if it involves sushi.)
Let’s restate these two examples in a different way. The first could go something like this: Great Product + Poor Delivery = Confused Customer. The second: Bad Product + Overstated Delivery = Angry Customer.
And we come to this: Jesus has a marketing problem. The problem He has is a sort of toxic alloy of each of the marketing problems just mentioned. Our equation would now look like this: Great Product (Jesus) + Poor Delivery (Christians) + Bad Product (Christians not acting like Jesus) + Overstated Delivery (Current forms of confrontive & judgmental evangelism) = Confused & Angry Customers. Got all that?
I was recently asked to review a movie entitled: “Lord, Save Us From Your Followers.” It was written and produced on a shoestring budget through the efforts of a thoughtful Christian by the name of Dan Merchant. Dan is not a Pastor. He comes from the world of marketing. His underlying question in making this movie wa
s this: “Why is the gospel of love dividing America?” I liked the movie very much. I liked it so much that our “wee” Celtic ministry decided to host a public viewing of it at the Abbey Theatre here in Durango.
The Abbey Theatre is a quaint turn-of-the-last-century theatre that is given to providing a movie-going experience for those who enjoy artistic and off-beat movies. As you enter the theatre lobby, the first thing that grabs your attention is the snack bar. I am reasonably certain that you haven’t seen one quite like this at the local Multi-Plex. This snack-bar carries the standard window display with all of the ginormous cartons of Milk-Duds, licorice, pop-corn and such. What catches you off-guard is the fidelity to both words: snack and bar. Yes, a full-on bar with a real live bartender stands ready to quench adult thirst with adult beverage.
Upon entering the theatre you sense that the proportions are somehow off. The theatre is small, which makes the projection screen seem enormous – a mere twenty paces from the back of the theatre to the front. The chairs are all scattered about. A semi-circular balcony surrounds the bottom floor. It reminds me very much of the famous Ford Theatre in Washington D.C. where my wife, Jan, and I saw “The Fantasticks.” You can just imagine John Wilkes Booth shooting his revolver, shouting: “Sic simper tyrannis” and jumping from this balcony. Jan and I have a favorite spot where we sit – down in front and to the left side - where we can put our feet up on a concrete pillar and get a really good slouch going in our chairs. It is simple, unadorned and we love it. Such is the Abbey Theatre.
The movie is a difficult one for Christians to watch because of the issue of marketing. It seems that when we stop talking for a moment, listen, and allow the world to process for us the message that is actually being heard – we find equation #1 very much in play: Great Product + Poor Delivery = Confused Customer. Those who are outside of the church, outside of Christianity, are baffled by the difference between us and Jesus. When asked to share a word that came to mind when they heard the name “Jesus”, the responses were: Forgiving, compassionate, loving, magic, kind and the like. But when asked the same type of question with the word “Christian” being the trigger, words like: Hypocritical, angry, crusades, unforgiving, judgmental and such won out.
It gets uglier. There are actually two products involved in the faith exchange. We are called Christians, i.e. Christ-likes. We are a sub-product of the main product. In other words, the Christian message teaches that we as believers are to resemble the very Christ that people on the street still find attractive. Think of it this way: When was the last time you saw an info-mercial for an exercise product being hawked by a fat man, or the praise of a hair-growth product being sung by a bald man? If the product hasn’t transformed the spokesperson it raises serious questions.
The strength of Christian witness is the evidence of a transformed life that matches in good part the quality of word, tone and acts of Jesus. When that is missing, we have: Bad Product (Christians not acting like Jesus) + Overstated Delivery (current forms of confrontive & judgmental evangelism) = Angry Customers. Putting it all together, we have angered and confused the world around us because of the disparity between popular Christianity and the One who described Himself as meek and humble of heart. His life was marked by healing the sick and giving dignity to women, children, the poor, unfair politicians, immigrants, the disabled, soldiers and the scandalized, and by laying down His life for mankind’s rebellion toward God. His simple command to His future followers was to just keep it going.
The exposure of this marketing problem was very wounding as I tried to unravel what was genuinely Christian in me and what was cultural and political conditioning. I’m still sorting it out.
But the movie was also very healing. As it progressed, it revealed the spirit of Christ in such disparate people as: Rick Warren – a world renowned author and pastor who serves his 30,000 member congregation for free and who donates 90% of his book royalties to fighting AIDS in Africa; Bono – a world-famous rock star and Christ-follower who leverages his fame to help ease the plight of the world’s poor; and, Marshall Snider – a not so famous pastor who sold his church building and meets under a bridge in Portland with the homeless. Each of these brought me great hope and great joy. And, perhaps more importantly, each of these representatives of Christ was met with great enthusiasm and regard by those outside of the Christian faith.
God is up to something. He still believes in the product. When it is handled with the honor with which it was given – amazing things can still happen.
I have just presented you with a marketing problem. What are you to do when there is a disconnect between a great product and a poor spokesperson? Good question. Let’s look at another marketing problem…
We have all experienced a menu that is well-packaged, sometimes with mouth-watering pictures, only to be served a pile of food that bears no resemblance to what our hungry eyes have been promised. In this case, the product that was promised looked great but the received product turned out to be hideous.
So, how many chances do you give a restaurant to provide you with good service, tasty food, and a reasonable bill? If your answer is: “More than once,” then I do not want you to pick a spot for us to eat. Mercy has no place in the choice of food establishments. Why pay for misery? In this example, you have a bad product that you are trying to cleverly market and that is known as a pig in a poke. (Note: “Pig in a poke”, an old Scottish colloquialism, is equivalent to the Latin “caveat emptor” i.e. “buyer beware”. A poke was a small bag roughly the size that would hold a small pig. To purchase the bag without seeing the pig led to another colloquialism, i.e. “letting the cat out of the bag.” I have come to believe that almost every dining experience is a potential pig in a poke – especially if it involves sushi.)
Let’s restate these two examples in a different way. The first could go something like this: Great Product + Poor Delivery = Confused Customer. The second: Bad Product + Overstated Delivery = Angry Customer.
And we come to this: Jesus has a marketing problem. The problem He has is a sort of toxic alloy of each of the marketing problems just mentioned. Our equation would now look like this: Great Product (Jesus) + Poor Delivery (Christians) + Bad Product (Christians not acting like Jesus) + Overstated Delivery (Current forms of confrontive & judgmental evangelism) = Confused & Angry Customers. Got all that?
I was recently asked to review a movie entitled: “Lord, Save Us From Your Followers.” It was written and produced on a shoestring budget through the efforts of a thoughtful Christian by the name of Dan Merchant. Dan is not a Pastor. He comes from the world of marketing. His underlying question in making this movie wa
s this: “Why is the gospel of love dividing America?” I liked the movie very much. I liked it so much that our “wee” Celtic ministry decided to host a public viewing of it at the Abbey Theatre here in Durango.The Abbey Theatre is a quaint turn-of-the-last-century theatre that is given to providing a movie-going experience for those who enjoy artistic and off-beat movies. As you enter the theatre lobby, the first thing that grabs your attention is the snack bar. I am reasonably certain that you haven’t seen one quite like this at the local Multi-Plex. This snack-bar carries the standard window display with all of the ginormous cartons of Milk-Duds, licorice, pop-corn and such. What catches you off-guard is the fidelity to both words: snack and bar. Yes, a full-on bar with a real live bartender stands ready to quench adult thirst with adult beverage.
Upon entering the theatre you sense that the proportions are somehow off. The theatre is small, which makes the projection screen seem enormous – a mere twenty paces from the back of the theatre to the front. The chairs are all scattered about. A semi-circular balcony surrounds the bottom floor. It reminds me very much of the famous Ford Theatre in Washington D.C. where my wife, Jan, and I saw “The Fantasticks.” You can just imagine John Wilkes Booth shooting his revolver, shouting: “Sic simper tyrannis” and jumping from this balcony. Jan and I have a favorite spot where we sit – down in front and to the left side - where we can put our feet up on a concrete pillar and get a really good slouch going in our chairs. It is simple, unadorned and we love it. Such is the Abbey Theatre.
The movie is a difficult one for Christians to watch because of the issue of marketing. It seems that when we stop talking for a moment, listen, and allow the world to process for us the message that is actually being heard – we find equation #1 very much in play: Great Product + Poor Delivery = Confused Customer. Those who are outside of the church, outside of Christianity, are baffled by the difference between us and Jesus. When asked to share a word that came to mind when they heard the name “Jesus”, the responses were: Forgiving, compassionate, loving, magic, kind and the like. But when asked the same type of question with the word “Christian” being the trigger, words like: Hypocritical, angry, crusades, unforgiving, judgmental and such won out.
It gets uglier. There are actually two products involved in the faith exchange. We are called Christians, i.e. Christ-likes. We are a sub-product of the main product. In other words, the Christian message teaches that we as believers are to resemble the very Christ that people on the street still find attractive. Think of it this way: When was the last time you saw an info-mercial for an exercise product being hawked by a fat man, or the praise of a hair-growth product being sung by a bald man? If the product hasn’t transformed the spokesperson it raises serious questions.
The strength of Christian witness is the evidence of a transformed life that matches in good part the quality of word, tone and acts of Jesus. When that is missing, we have: Bad Product (Christians not acting like Jesus) + Overstated Delivery (current forms of confrontive & judgmental evangelism) = Angry Customers. Putting it all together, we have angered and confused the world around us because of the disparity between popular Christianity and the One who described Himself as meek and humble of heart. His life was marked by healing the sick and giving dignity to women, children, the poor, unfair politicians, immigrants, the disabled, soldiers and the scandalized, and by laying down His life for mankind’s rebellion toward God. His simple command to His future followers was to just keep it going.
The exposure of this marketing problem was very wounding as I tried to unravel what was genuinely Christian in me and what was cultural and political conditioning. I’m still sorting it out.
But the movie was also very healing. As it progressed, it revealed the spirit of Christ in such disparate people as: Rick Warren – a world renowned author and pastor who serves his 30,000 member congregation for free and who donates 90% of his book royalties to fighting AIDS in Africa; Bono – a world-famous rock star and Christ-follower who leverages his fame to help ease the plight of the world’s poor; and, Marshall Snider – a not so famous pastor who sold his church building and meets under a bridge in Portland with the homeless. Each of these brought me great hope and great joy. And, perhaps more importantly, each of these representatives of Christ was met with great enthusiasm and regard by those outside of the Christian faith.
God is up to something. He still believes in the product. When it is handled with the honor with which it was given – amazing things can still happen.
Be Blessed,
C.J. Alderton,
Patrick Crossing
