{"id":5156,"date":"2017-10-25T07:48:56","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T14:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/irreverin\/?p=5156"},"modified":"2017-10-27T05:26:21","modified_gmt":"2017-10-27T12:26:21","slug":"who-markets-the-gospel-better-than-church-burger-king-and-basically-everybody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/irreverin\/2017\/10\/who-markets-the-gospel-better-than-church-burger-king-and-basically-everybody\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Markets the Gospel Better Than Church? Burger King, and Basically Everybody"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Y\u2019all know I love Church, right? LOVE it. For all of its imperfections, bumbling ways and love of minutiae, there is no collective body on earth more capable of harnessing sheer joy, world-changing compassion, and the transforming power of presence with those in need. I\u2019m here for it, every single day.<\/p>\n

But. Sometimes we are terrible at marketing.<\/p>\n

When I say \u201cwe,\u201d I\u2019m talking about the\u00a0larger body, the big \u201cC\u201d church. Advertising is, shall we say, not our spiritual gift.<\/p>\n

The reasons for this shortcoming are manifold. For one thing, we operated under the delusion, for decades, that all the Church had to do was exist. That worked for us for a hot minute in the 50\u2019s. So we got comfortable. We kept the lights on, we ran great programs, we sat through mediocre sermons and ate stale communion wafers and, unless there was a big blow-up over the carpet color or which hymnal to use, we mostly did ok. And then, a minute later, the world changed A LOT, because women went to work and cars and planes faster, and technology basically went off the rails and our lives turned into one big episode of the Jetsons overnight\u2026 and in every way that mattered, the Church sort of sat by and watched\u2013with popcorn\u2013and did not transform itself accordingly.<\/p>\n

\"billboard2\"<\/p>\n

Another big memo we missed: with big change comes\u00a0nuance.\u00a0<\/em>Traditional family models shifted, the economy\u00a0took a roller coaster ride, things like education and healthcare became luxuries for the elite, and the pace of our work lives went into overdrive. The Church\u2019s overall response? We hauled a praise band up front, started live-Tweeting sermons, and maybe installed a coffee bar in the lobby. But fundamentally, so much of what church IS has stayed the same, regardless of the rapidly shifting world around us. Large or small, progressive or conservative, mainline or mega, it matters not\u2026 we are still, in many ways, what we\u2019ve always been: a destination.<\/p>\n

What we like to do is invite people to PLACES and STUFF. To hear our rock-star preacher, take part in our wonderful youth or family group program, join our baseball team\u2026 Our invitations consist of a time and place to be, and maybe a thing to do. But\u00a0as for the ability to capture and convey an alternate vision of humanity, and the power of the gospel to make that vision a reality? Not our gift.<\/p>\n

There is a church here in town\u00a0with a giant banner out front. It\u2019s been there forever, so clearly they\u2019re proud of the message. It says this:<\/p>\n

\u201cA Church Where Anyone Can Come.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Grammatical butchering aside\u2026 what does that even mean? If I am\u00a0a person unfamiliar with the congregation, what do I learn from that sign, other than the fact that I\u2019m allowed in the building? And if I am a person unfamiliar with the gospel in general,\u00a0<\/em>what does that sign tell me about God\u2019s love for me, or God\u2019s desire for the world?\u00a0The message is almost aggressively passive, if that\u2019s a thing.<\/p>\n

But then I wonder if the rest of us are doing much better.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been painfully aware, just lately, that the corporate world frequently smokes our pants when it comes to sharing a message of hope, community, compassion and transformation. Just this week, Burger King came out with a new video ad campaign that is breaking the internet. For my money, I haven\u2019t touched a Whopper in decades, because they are just gross. But this message is powerful. Check it out, if you haven\u2019t already:<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=mnKPEsbTo9s<\/p>\n

The sad irony is,\u00a0big businesses, celebrities and other secular entities often manage to convey a vision for a better world; a vision of peace and justice and reconciliation that makes us want to be better people and also\u00a0run right out and buy a product that is probably destroying the environment and our bodies but that\u2019s ok because they made us feel feelings.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Remember the Coke \u201cAmerica is Beautiful\u201d<\/a> ad from the Super Bowl? It was powerful enough to bring the racist trolls out of their La-Z-Boys, but left the rest of us sobbing through the halftime show\u2026 and strangely thirsty for Coke products (weird.) Or the Amazon thing<\/a>? With the Priest and the Rabbi? That, right there, is the meaning of life captured in a 30-second ad spot.<\/p>\n

Oh! And you know who else? There was this beautiful \u201cFood is Love\u201d<\/a>\u00a0commercial, a long, lovely litany about\u00a0how we care for and love each other with food.\u00a0It is so warm and inspiring and you\u2019re like YES, I am in for whatever this is\u2026 And then the name pops up on the screen and whose message is it?\u00a0Monsanto. S<\/em>ingle-handedly monopolizing the food supply AND destroying the environment while poisoning us all. They are basically evil on a stick and yet, they can tell this beautiful story about human connection\u00a0and land, and make you think for a minuthat\u2019s what they\u2019re selling.<\/p>\n

In a perfect world, Burger King\u2013and Coke, and Amazon, and whoever else\u2013can tell these wonderful stories with their commercials, and the vision they share for humanity becomes our lived experience. Advertising is powerful like that. I mean, start putting men in the commercials for cleaning products and they can change the dang world.<\/p>\n

But these corporations, for all the lovely messaging, are always going to be part of the problem in bigger ways than their ads convey. They are the voices of capitalism, for better or worse,\u00a0and they don\u2019t exactly practice what they preach. As a friend pointed out, Burger King took a mom and pop burger joint to court, forcing them to change their name\u00a0(\u201cWhopper Burger,\u201d) even though they had the name long before the trademark. Anyway. A bully is a bully, epic commercials notwithstanding.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Amazon is putting small businesses out of existence and running their employees into the ground; and Coke is (rather effectively) trying to kill us by way of obesity and diabetes.<\/p>\n

Great\u00a0commercials may or may not inspire us to be better people. They\u00a0may or may not change the narrative about how we treat each other. But the thing is, it is not Burger King\u2019s JOB to call out that basic humanity in us. It\u2019s the Church\u2019s job. And we aren\u2019t always great at it.<\/p>\n

Granted, corporations have billion dollar advertising budgets, whereas most of our churches have, what, maybe $500\/year? What can we get with that, Don Draper? (As he takes a midday shot of whiskey and laughs us out of his office). But the power of these ad campaigns teaches us an important truth about what resonates with people\u2026 Story. Connection. Beauty<\/em>. Showing up for our neighbors. Overcoming differences and embodying a spirit of unity. These are the things that our neighbors are hungry for right now; and things that the church should be sharing better than anyone.<\/p>\n

After all, the \u201cProduct\u201d we\u2019ve got to sell is far more life-giving than the sodas, burgers, and GMO\u2019s that the competition are hawking.<\/p>\n

Rather than upping our advertising game (and budget) what our churches really need is a more compelling story. An embodied vision of the world-as-it-could-be.\u00a0Maybe we need to dispense with the bland invitations to fellowship\u2013and the focus on getting bodies into the building\u2013and learn instead to tell powerful stories about changing the world. Make videos (I promise, your youth group can do it for free), make creative hashtags, slap it on a t-shirt, tell picture stories on Instagram, whatever. Package it any-whichway, but\u00a0more importantly,\u00a0let it be our lived experience in the world.\u00a0If Burger King can do it just for the sake of selling a burger, we should be able to do it far more effectively with the power of the gospel at hand.<\/p>\n

What better story could anyone tell? And who could tell it better than us?<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Y\u2019all know I love Church, right? LOVE it. For all of its imperfections, bumbling ways and love of minutiae, there is no collective body on earth more capable of harnessing sheer joy, world-changing compassion, and the transforming power of presence with those in need. I\u2019m here for it, every single day. But. Sometimes we are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1154,"featured_media":5159,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,1],"tags":[584,1616,59,170,1615,105,9,10],"class_list":["post-5156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-being-a-person","category-uncategorized","tag-advertising","tag-burger-king-bullying","tag-church","tag-church-growth","tag-marketing","tag-ministry","tag-progressive-christianity","tag-spirituality"],"yoast_head":"\nWho Markets the Gospel Better Than Church? 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