Jordon Cooper has an intersting blog entry about wanting to rediscover stories. He’s tired of talking about what’s wrong with the church and wants to hear more stories of what’s working:
Church watching and complaining is as old as Jesus’ disciples wondering aloud about what Jesus was doing with those pesky kids. As I read church history, it is rarely full of the complainers and deconstructers. That is the easy part. History is full of the builders. Someone I know once told me that he felt called to change the church. How has the church been changed before? Would there be a Willow Creek Association if Bill Hybels had just sat in his class and talked about the need for a Acts 2 church and decided not to plant Willow Creek? Writing is important but until someone can prove to me that they know what they are talking about, do we ever pay attention? The reason that I want to hear from builders is not because they are necessarily successful but because they have stories to share from their journey. They might not have mighty morphin mega churches but they have stories that I can learn from.
During my frustration with all of this, I started reading more and more weblogs of local communities of faith. Instead of talking about what was wrong with the church, they were quietly articulating the vision of what it could look like and not only that but they were living it out. Instead of just ideas, they were showing me what the church does look like when it is striving to be faithful.
I resonate with Jordon’s call. Despite our negative name, I hope Church Marketing Sucks can be more about what’s working in church. I’m much more interested in cup holders and swimming pools and Xboxes and reaching teen moms than I am in comic sans.
Michael Box
February 8, 2006
It is easy to point out the things we see as negative. It is much harder to make suggestions on how to change things. It is even more difficult to actually try to change. Over the past few years I have been guilty of merely pointing out the things that I do not like in Church, Christianity, or in Christian culture. I have, however, come to the realization that I am accomplishing nothing by simply bickering about my dislikes or frustrations. I agree that we should be engaging in more productive conversations regarding what is working well within the Church. In order to find answers there must be a problem, but if we only stop at identifying the problem, then it will not be solved.
Dan
February 9, 2006
I too have reached the point where I’m sick about griping and want to move forward.
Being a journalist, storytelling is very much on my heart and the subject of my blog. After all, aren’t we talking about “Good News” and the “Greatest Story Ever Told?”
I’m not sure where to put this or how to reach you directly, but one low-cost and not very time-consuming avenue of marketing a church that I haven’t seen discussed here is taking advantage of newspapers’ and other media’s offer to publish news about our churches for free in the form of press releases. It’s at least one way of raising a church’s profile locally and perhaps raising support and attracting people. It’s so basic, but I don’t think churches do it very often or at least not very well. I’ve written a short treatise on the subject on my blog.