Texts: Jeremiah 20:7-13; Romans 6:1b-11; Matthew 10:24-39
I've been thinking about the advertising industry recently. It fascinates me in a rather macabre way. How would I feel, I wonder, if one of my daughters rang to say she'd got a job in advertising. Would I admit it to anyone, or would I dissemble a bit. "Oh, she works for some outfit or other – not too sure what she does really." Which, I suppose, is just the sort of evasiveness I accuse the advertising industry of.
Generally I like to think I'm fairly immune to advertising. I've trained myself to screen out adverts as I work my way through a newspaper; and when I do find a TV ad I enjoy I usually have to admit afterwards that I'm not sure what product it was advertising. For example, I like the one featuring a rather gormless, chubby guy, who loses the key to his brand new red car. The search takes on epic proportions as ground, air and sea searches are launched, metal detectors are brought in, refuse and grass clippings are sifted, and goodness knows what else. Then he sits down and discovers the key in his back pocket. I like that ad – I've seen it several times – but I still can't tell you what make of car it is advertising.
Which, of course, somewhat defeats the purpose from the point of view of the advertiser, and even more, the client. It's all about branding these days, or so we're told. Even the All Blacks have ceased to be a national rugby team – they are a global brand, and the Rugby Union will do all it can to protect that brand and maintain its commercial value. Think of David Beckham – no longer good enough to command a regular place in a rather indifferent England side, he commands huge fees for a side in that great soccer nation, the USA, because his name sells merchandise around the world to the tune of millions of dollars. He can miss virtually the whole season through injury and it will make no difference to his commercial value. The same is about to be proved in the case of Tiger Woods – his income will hardly dip even though he cannot play golf for many months.
All of this has not escaped the notice of some in the Church. Parishes are now urged to sell themselves – or to market themselves, which sounds marginally better, perhaps. How might we do that? Well, appropriately enough there are ways and means both ancient and modern: we can have ever more clever websites, for instance, that are ever so interactive. I haven't heard of one that can actually dispense Communion yet, but it'll come. Soon there will be (if there isn't already) a virtual Lourdes, with testimonies from people who had only just connected to the website and they experienced a complete healing. Before long the site will be clogged with virtual crutches thrown away by people who previously had difficulty even getting to their computers.
At the other end of the scale, of course, there are still the old- fashioned staples of church advertising, a notice in the newspapers, a widely distributed leaflet, or a huge notice board outside the church. Of course, some cynics question whether these things actually tap into the spiritual hunger that is said to be out there; but then we will never know because the Church has never been very keen on evaluating its past practices – only repeating them year after year. Do you know of anyone who has come to this church because they saw it advertised in the ODT? It's possible, I guess, but I don't think I have met one myself.
I have to say that most church advertising I have seen has been dully informative. Take, for example, our Cathedral. On Saturdays it usually has an advertisement in the ODT listing all its services for the next day. It tells us which Sunday it is, so if Septuagesima has a special appeal to you, you'll be sure to queue up for that one. It tells you who the preacher is: that may be a draw card, or it may be a way of alerting us that some parental discretion is advised. And for music fans, it tells us which choral mass will be used. Despite all this helpful advertising, there is always a seat or two left for the latecomers.
Advertising doesn't thrive on facts. It needs catchy slogans, clever images, something that makes your church stand out in the crowded market-place, something to give your church brand a competitive edge over its rivals. One good example comes to mind in the main road through North East Valley. There's a hoarding that looks rather similar to "Placemakers", but it actually says "The Maker's Place". That's quite good, I think. But good enough to want to make a sinner repent and turn to Christ?
I've probably told you before about the young keen Vicar in a parish in the U.K. who went for both impact and theological rigour: he had erected a large board saying "Only Sinners Are Welcome Here". Naturally, the regulars tore it down and reported him to the Bishop. The other danger is the ever-lurking graffiti artist. The story has been told many times of the Cathedral in Liverpool who, as Advent approached, put up a huge poster that asked passersby, "What will you do when Jesus comes again?" Now at that time Liverpool football team had a very good centre-forward called Ian St John. So it wasn't long before some wit had answered the question "What will you do when Jesus returns?" by scrawling underneath, "Move St John to inside-right!"
It's not easy, is it? For instance, if we were going to advertise ourselves – this congregation – on a big board in the hope of attracting new clients (as we call worshippers these days), what would we say? "All welcome"? Would that be true? Even the rough, the smelly, the drunk, the crazed and the downright objectionable? The sort of "sinners" Jesus spent time with? Gang members wearing patches, paedophiles, the ostentatiously rich and superior? Do we really welcome all? Should we really welcome all?
What about "family church"? A lot of churches call themselves "family churches", but what does that mean? Does it mean, children of all ages are welcome, and if it does mean that, are they really welcome? I've come across the odd child in a service before that I certainly wouldn't have welcomed back. And what about single people – do family churches exclude them? Or does it mean, the members of this church are one big family? Would you want to belong to a church that behaved like your family?
Truth and advertising are never going to have an easy relationship, in the church or otherwise. Are we any better at recognising and telling the truth about ourselves than any other organisation?
But the Church has a far more difficult problem than all this. The Church has a product that, by its very nature, is hard to sell. Just ask Jeremiah. The prophets were in the advertising business, after all. They were the original sandwich-board men – or perhaps I should say, the original fairground barkers. They were God's P.R. men –his publicists. Their job was to tell God's story. And the better they were at it, the worse fate they suffered. Jeremiah knew all about that. This is how he sums up a typical working day in the advertising and publicity department of God's enterprise: I am ridiculed all day long; everyone mocks me...So the word of the Lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long.
Why? What was so awful about the message he was required to proclaim? Well, he was to tell the people of his time that the nation was going to hell in a basket, or, more accurately, going to Babylonia in captivity. That's a hard message to make appealing – that's a real hard sell, as we say in the advertising business.
And, of course, like Father like Son. People are looking for peace in a troubled world, aren't they? Okay, try selling them this: Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. In the time of the great anti-nuclear rallies of the 1970's and 1980's, a number of churches proudly advertised themselves as "Peace Churches". It's a fair bet that none of them put that verse on their notice boards or other advertising material.
And it's a fair bet that those churches that advertise themselves as family churches don't use the next bit either: For I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law – your enemies will be the members of your own household. And he doesn't stop there: Anyone who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
That would tax the skills of the very best spin doctors in the world. And they would fail. Because there is no way of selling the Gospel in the absence of faith. It makes no sense in the absence of faith. Only if we can say with Jeremiah, despite everything, the Lord is with me does any of it make sense. And no amount of advertising can convince us of that; only faith can convince us of that.
If we must have a notice board let it simply say this: We believe the Lord is here. I guarantee that it will be no less successful than any other church notice board, and it will have the advantage of being true.
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