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Where is God in All of This Marketing?
By chris | November 15, 2006
I said earlier that Paul had two approaches in his missionary communication. The first is that he relied on God, the second was his mindset. If we are going to rely on God, what do we rely on God to do? Look at these verses about Man’s role and God’s role.
Here are a few verses about God’s role and our role:
God’s Role Man’s Role
God Draws People to himself
John 6:44 - No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day.
God Reveals Himself
Matthew 16:17 - And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
God Convicts
Jude 1:15 - to execute judgment on all, and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness which they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.
God Converts
1 Peter 1:3 - Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy we have been born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
Man Proclaims
Romans 10:14 - But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher?
Man Persuades
2 Corinthians 5:11 - Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men
Man Follows-Up
Matthew 28:20 - teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.
Man Builds Fellowship
1 Thessalonians 5:11 - Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.
God is active in the world and has already gone before us in this process of sharing the message of salvation. As a minister, you can count on the fact that God is speaking already in the context you are serving. Our part is to join God where he is already working. I believe God has placed a little of His image in us all, and as a result, all groups of people have traits that reflect God’s person and message (not perfectly, only in small ways). When you discover what these are, you uncover the bridge you can use, some call it the “redemptive analogy” that is the bridge for the gospel.
Missionary Don Richardson talks about this in his book Eternity in Their Hearts. In fact, he talks about the process of Paul in Athens using the “Altar to an Unknown God” in just the way I am describing. (I have so many more things to unpack from what we learn from Paul in Athens in future posts!) Richardson shows how Paul used the redemptive analogy of the altar to illustrate that God was already at work among the people of Athens to reach them with the message.
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. (Acts 17: 22-23)
According to Athenian history of that day, hundreds of years before Paul came to Athens, the city was under a curse because of the treachery of their King Megales. The Pythian oracle told the Athenian leaders the curse would not be lifted from the city until all the gods had been appeased for his actions. This was bad news for the Athenians since they had hundreds of God’s. One philosopher Petronius said of the Athnians, “Gods are easier to find in Athens than men”.
In desperation, the Athenian leadership came to their city’s famous philosopher Epimenides and complained, “We have sacrificed to all the gods to appease them, yet the curse remains. We cannot figure out what god we have offended” Epimenides, replied, “Perhaps you have offended an unknown god. Make an altar and sacrifice to him and the curse will abate” And so it was.
That is the context Paul spoke into in Athens. He used what he knew of the Athenian history and culture to contextualize the message to them. He even quoted Epimenides! In my opinion, the Unknown God that lifted the curse in Athens really was the God of the Bible, and he lifted the curse because He always is active in redeeming mankind. How awesome He prepared the way for Paul in Athens.
If that story doesn’t make you want to fall to your knees and ask God to reveal to you what his work is among the people you want to reach, I don’t know what will. The unique work of the ministry marketer is to understand the spiritual context of the people they serve. God reveals Himself where you are! What is fascinating is you can see that Paul understood that the group of people he found in Athens had in them a piece of God’s personality. Paul appealed to them using their own culture as a bridge. You can do the same thing in your ministry communication–if you rely on God.
God convicts people of sin and converts them. Paul used the words of the Athenian philosopher, Epimenides. As a media missionary, you can count on God to draw people to himself because he loves the world so much He gave His Son and is not willing that any should perish. He also will convict them of their sins and convert them. Our job is to make sure we don’t do anything that countermands or takes over God’s role. After all there are plenty of other things for us to do in the work of this harvest.
These verses above also clearly show that man has a role in Christian communication. Ministry communication planning, ministry marketing, is one of the ways ministry leaders can work to be as effective as possible without becoming carnal and man-centered. Study the verses above in context and you will see each of us as ministry communicators have an active role. But we need to make sure we do not crossover and try to use marketing to do something that only God can do.
Do you see anything on God’s list you are trying to accomplish with marketing–STOP! Rely on God to do what is His role. Most ministry marketing that is broken is broken because ministry leaders are not doing their part and expecting marketing to deliver spiritual results only God can deliver.
In the harvest God expects us to rely upon him. At the same time he calls us to activity. The Bible calls us to take up our role. As a ministry marketing coach, your role is to help others in ministry do their best at all God expects them to do in their communication—all while not relying on themselves to do what God only can do.
Topics: Theology & Marketing |