This is a "pet peeves" post, done in Q&A format. It applies to certain types of advertisements, and at the kind of evangelism that is more church advertisement than evangelism. After reading, it should be clear enough which types of advertisement are intended.
Q. How can I get my church's name recognized in our community?
A. If you're more interested in how people see your church's name than how they see Jesus' name, it's time to get back to basics.
Q. How can I increase our Summer Bible School's appeal to the children and their parents?
A. What if we take a risk: assume that people ultimately want to know God's holiness and goodness, Jesus' compassion, and the resurrection -- the reason for our hope. In that light, any "super cool" gimmicky pitches work against our real purpose. The greatest blessing is knowing God; build a program on that. Dare to disciple.
Q. Our evangelism team invites people to church, but so few come. What's the problem?
A. If they don't know Jesus, why would they come to church? Did you tell them about Jesus, or did you tell them about your church?
Q. What can I do to make people see our church as relevant?
A. Are you making a difference?
Unfortunately, an answer to the first question is to have some member of the pastoral staff get accused of a crime . .
ReplyDeleteSo our church actually *hasn't* scraped the bottom of the barrel on ideas yet ...
ReplyDelete;)
Take care & God bless
Anne / WF
That really gets to the main point....trouble is, it isn't "fun." Doesn't everything have to be fun now days, including candy bars?
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of people are tired of the amusement park and ready for a quiet moment, tired of the candy bars and ready for a nice nourishing solid meal.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think a lot of leaders haven't done that, and don't know how to proceed.
Take care & God bless
Anne / WF