In case you haven’t heard…The Advance Conference will be taking place in Durham, NC, June 4th through June 6th, 2009.   Speakers include John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Matt Chandler, Ed Stetzer , and Eric Mason.  It looks like it will address some great topics such as “What is the Church?” and “Preaching the Gospel to the De-Churched.”  If you happen to attend, please let Church Communications Pro what you thought of the conference and any “cliff notes” you would share with our friends.

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I am going to take a huge risk and go way out on a limb.

A couple of my current comments on an article at Church Communications Pro regarding open source products or “freeware” got me thinking about a situation with churches I have encountered personally.  The situation has to do with some churches or their leaders that feel as though they should receive free stuff just for being a church or pastor.

I believe that there is nothing wrong with a church receiving any type of gift when a person wants to give it from the heart or in a worshipful response to God.  I do believe it is wrong for churches to expect or guilt people (knowingly or unknowingly) into giving to their church by using the “Kingdom building” excuse.

Let me share an example from my business life.

My professional work focuses on helping churches communicate their message.  I do this because I love God and want to give back with the talents He has blessed me with and am passionate about seeing the Church grow.  This is the way that I provide everything from a home to food to education for my family.  The Bible says “a worker deserves their wages” Luke 10:7.  The sad thing is that there have been so many churches during the last six years who have tried to get my services for free or for a huge discount because “I am a Christian and I should give to the Kingdom building movement.” This is absolutely wrong and not Biblical!

What some church leaders don’t seem to understand is that, like them, I too have had to pay my dues for education, training, expensive software, and computers. They forget this is how I feed my family and probably don’t know that there aren’t benefits like being on a church staff.  Sometimes I have to work when I am really sick and I don’t get yearly vacation times.  Please understand this is not a gripe about my choice and lifestyle but that there are many things in the background that can easily be forgotten.

This brings me to my comments at Church Communications Pro.

If a business charges for their services which take time, money, and experience, shouldn’t they have the right to earn a profit and make a living from their talents?  Is it right for a church to feel as though everything should be provided for free or at a discount?  Wouldn’t you feel horrible by taking the blessing from another person or food from a child’s mouth?  And to those wealthier churches who have played the “Kingdom” card – are you not sinning against the person or business by pretending to have no money?

I wish I could give it all away but my priority is providing for the people in my household – and it’s that way for other businesses and individuals too!  My hope is that churches will understand this and remember that no one can just work for free…unless you’re independently wealthy.

A worker deserves their wages and churches should be the first to willingly pay Christians who are using their hands to make a living instead of always giving to the people who refuse to work and expect a handout.

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Thanks for the info Bill!

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I recently asked a pastor about how the Exponential Conference went last week and before he replied the word jumped into my head – commercialized. He said the conference was more about speakers promoting their books and agendas than church planting. I won’t go into my personal experience with the National New Church Conference but I can totally see my friend’s point of view.

Christianity has become too commercialized in some aspects and I think we need to get a reign on it.

It appears in some circles that selling books, CD’s, sermon series, speaking gigs, metrosexual identities, and being the top blogger is the “in thing”. This has really been observed in the church planting world and evident by the groupies who continually blog about stalking their idol at conferences or who market their personal blog more than their church…all the while wearing long sleeve black shirts with big collars unbuttoned to their chest with faded jeans, Doc Martens, and a soul patch or frosted hair to match.

You know what I would like to hear more about and see?

Jesus Christ, biblical inerrancy, small guys in the trenches, life transformation, spiritual discipline, serving and washing feet, becoming the least, humility, toned down church marketing and advertising, and the realization that people NOT in church or our faith see what’s happening but many Christians don’t.

Please know that I have personally struggled with these issues myself and I thank Jesus every day that I see in a new perspective. I’m jacked up too, but friends, we have to start looking at Christianity in America through a new lenses or we will reap what we have sown.

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There is something going on but I quite can’t put my finger on it. It’s a gut feeling that’s right more often than not. I think the church landscape is drastically changing and that church as we know it now is going to evolve (no, I am not supporting Darwin) into something much different. It’s just a hypothesis or idea I’m working on, whatever that’s worth.

One thing I do know in many conversations I’ve had lately with church leaders and church planters is that some of the media tools we have used over the last few years is losing their effectiveness or not working at all anymore. Are people fed up with advertising and marketing? Or could it be the message isn’t clear enough or that possibly the product, service, or dare I say it, the church just stinks?

I think it’s a combination of all of them.

People are tired of getting spammed or hordes of junk mail. I see and get stuff from churches that are atrocious! They say too much, don’t communicate clearly, make unchurched people feel judged, or look like somebody hurled on the paper and attached a logo. Some of the marketing tools observed from churches I have visited over-promises and under-delivers. They try to be something they are not.

Even though I believe that many churches still need to catch up with the 21^st century, I think by the time they do, it will be too late. So what do we do, or better yet, what’s my buzz word for the day?

“Realationships”

Yes, it’s misspelled but notice it says real. You know what’s going to build your church and the Kingdom? Forming real relationships! Not those cheesy types of friendships where it’s surface level or fake. You can’t pretend to care or be interested – it has to be true and authentic – or you might as well stay in a cardboard box. And building “realationships” is going to take work… a dirty, four letter word! There’s no magical kool-aid, pill or Three Minute Program to do it for us. We have to go in this messy world and love people. It’s a simple but difficult to follow solution.

Church marketing is dying. Throwing a slick advertising piece or website at the public isn’t going to cut it much longer. The church of tomorrow will require more than a campaign. It will require investing personally and hanging out in people’s jacked up lives.

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It is so easy to compare ourselves to another church or a church leader or church planter. We look at others and benchmark our success (or failures) by what they have achieved. Churches try to duplicate other churches or some of us attempt to be the clone of Mark Driscoll, Craig Groeschel, or David Crowder (goatee and all). But what works for them isn’t going to work for us – not to mention that God has called us to be ourselves in the situation He has given us.

God has uniquely made you. Celebrate it. Live it out loud!

We can learn from others but the best thing we can do for ourselves, our team, and our organization is to be true to who we’re called to be or the vision we have been given…not someone else’s.

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I have to break from part two of my series on whether “Church Marketing is a Sin” to rant about how Christianity in America has become a highly lucrative business. Check out the current list of church conferences on the calendar this year (and this isn’t all of them):

• Healing Place Church Experience (have I ever said how sick I am of hearing the word experience and church together?)
• Unleash 2008
• Q (very short name I’d say but at least this looks like it actually has a bigger purpose)
• Orange: We hope you will join us this year for an authentic, dangerous and UNCENSORED experience! (Does this mean they’ll drop the F-Bomb?)
• Coast 2 Coast
• Externally Focused Conference: Transform your community. Transform your life. Hmmm…
• The White Board Sessions: You can get a whiteboard for under $20 at Staples.
  

PLUS, and I love this one…I can spend two days following the Senior Management Team of Granger Community Church for a cool $1,500.00 to get an inside look at how they do ministry. Are you really serious?!?

Please understand that I do not mean to sound harsh towards any of the people or their teams presenting at these conferences. I personally only know one presenter out of all of them (who has an ego the size of Texas) but I am sure that most of their hearts are for helping others build the Kingdom. I also ask Jesus for forgiveness in that this may not be the most Christ-like post or way to communicate my feeling about this topic. However my question is this:

Do we really need all these conferences to tell us how these leaders do their ministry or how to be effective at ours?

I don’t know whether it’s a conviction of the Spirit or common sense but it grieves me to think at how much money will be spent to attend and hear these speakers. I did some number crunching based off of an average on each conferences fees and the number of attendees they allow or “guestimate” based off the size or speakers at the event.

My very rough calculation = $2,185,940.00. That’s over two million dollars not including airfare, hotel, meals, and the “I was there” t-shirt.

Do we really need to spend over two million dollars to follow teams around for a day and watch how they interact with each other or to have churches who have been blessed with great growth tell us how “they” did it? Is it worth going to another conference to hear about another innovation, theory, or technique that may or may not work for our individual situation – or one that a church staff will never implement because they’re still working on the method from last year’s conference?

I know of many church planters who have been called to plant in their community who are doing a great work but are struggling because of financial support. I see people in my city who can’t afford a hot meal or warm place to sleep for one night. I know of single mothers who are working at least two jobs just to feed their children and keep the electricity on. I could mention the fact that some “on-fire” Christian leaders give more to buying conference tickets, books, and lattes than sending support to missionaries who look death in the eye every day for fulfilling the Great Commission.

I pray that church leaders, their teams, and congregations will wake up and realize that “the Church” has become just like corporate America. We have been blessed way beyond our dreams and we are now taking advantage of it. We talk of being missional yet some of us can’t even break beyond the missional motivation speech. Shame on us! American prosperity has definitely been a curse.

How about we spend more time in prayer, fasting, serving in our community, and listening to the hurt of others over spending more money on an expensive trip to tell us how we might do it and give it to better causes? And I point this to myself – an addicted lover of books and technology. Maybe it’s time to just go out and do it and learn for ourselves. After all, experience is the best teacher and Jesus Christ the best leader we could follow.

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A while back I received a book that I wanted to refer to others but quite honestly forgot to do.

Deadly Viper: Character Assassins by Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite is freaking awesome! I admit that the design is really cool and I only wish I would have thought of the idea first! Anyways, Deadly Viper is about living a life of integrity and how to take on the Seven Character Assassins that are known for wiping out great men and women. This book is humorous, well written, short and to the point. It’s an all around butt-kickin’ resource!

The Deadly Viper website (www.deadlyviper.org) has the DL on what Foster and Wilhite is up to as well as the opportunity to read their blog, get the book or free audio download, and get some killer wallpaper. Check it out today!

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I started checking out a company web-blog about a month ago that offers “professional” consulting services and who has really great tips on marketing, copywriting, and SEO techniques for small businesses. The thing is that I really started to get turned off by the frequent dropping of the”F-Bomb” and other colorful words that would make some people blush. What really stunned me is when I discovered this is a stay at home mom.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that I am not the poster boy for a clean mouth but considering where I used to be and where I am today, it is a night and day difference. It doesn’t offend me if other people talk that way unless every other word has to do with four letters and then it doesn’t totally offend me as much as it bothers me. To me, it shows a lack of intelligence and disrespect for others. What I can’t understand is if most people know that this kind of talk is viewed as offensive, why in the world would you salt your business website with it?

Maybe I am old-school but I would never consider using this type of language on any material that hopes to win me business. I will also not even think about hiring someone who can’t control their language either. For example, my family and I went to a car dealership looking for a new car last year. We stopped at one of the reputable dealers in town but the salesman who came out to help us started cussing. He totally showed disrespect to us – especially my wife and children. Needless to say we walked off and they lost a potential sale or any future business (we have also told many people about this experience).

I believe it’s time for some businesses and companies to start using common sense and morally correct ethics again. I think that society needs a gut check and should stop allowing marketing and advertising campaigns to be centered on being provocative or the ’sex sells” ideology. I feel that there needs to be a line drawn between obscenity and creativity.

How about you?

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