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Stop Speaking Gibberish in Church Marketing
By chris | December 12, 2007
Much marketing coming out of churches today has messages that still have too many terms that people don’t understand. Often, the message requires more biblical literacy than is “out there” in the general public. To some people the message in church marketing is no more than gibberish to them.
For example, I don’t know many unchurched people who could understand what “anointed preaching” is. Once I heard Christian film maker Phil Cooke describe how one church wanted to invite area men to a “mighty time of fellowship” watching the Super Bowl. To the unchurched, who rarely, if ever, have a “mighty time” of anything—it must sound like so much swashbuckling. “Arrr, me matees—time fer a mighty time of fellowship!”
You may think people know who Abraham and Isaac are, but they don’t. People don’t know Paul from Peter, or Sodom from Salvation. The scenario is much like the one Paul found himself in Acts 17. He stood before the Athenians, a people who had no understanding of the basics of the Bible. He knew he couldn’t start with Abraham and work his way to Jesus–he had to start where the people were.
How many advertisements, church signs, brochures, bulletins, websites have terms that a person would only understand if they had a background in the church. “Fellowship”, “Outreach”, “Redemption”, “The Blood of Jesus” We all may know what these terms mean. But what do they mean to the people we want to reach?
In one of my market research projects I came to realize how something I had been saying for years could easily be misunderstood by unchurched people. If you are like me you may have told people they need to consider “a personal relationship with Jesus Christ“. I wish every one had a personal relationship with Jesus in the way that I mean that phrase. That is they understand who Jesus is, what He did on the cross for them, how He rose again and how they should repent and turn their life over to Him to live under His lordship.
But what I discovered in my research was many who hear “You need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ” actually understand that to mean, “You need to come up with something in the way of a personal belief about Jesus on your own and stick to that faithfully”. The context of the message is the relativism of our day.
Any idea about Jesus is as valid as any other idea about Jesus as long as you are sincere. I don’t agree with it, but I have to deal with it if I hope to communicate. Sticking my head in the sand won’t do. Railing against it won’t do. Dropping my core biblical beliefs certainly won’t do!
Many Christians don’t realize it, but in some contexts, they may be sending unintended messages because they lack understanding of their audience. We don’t know it, but we don’t really speak the English language the way unchurched people do. A Christian vocabulary has emerged some people call “Christianese”.
We speak another language; we don’t understand the social networks around us. Outside the church people have a language all their own. They might not have expressions we don’t understand, but they do have experiences that make them form their perceptions.
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March 22nd, 2008 at 3:28 pm
[...] 3. On the “Explore” page. I really like the top part that has the fast facts and a repeat of the map. But the lower part of the page will receive one of the few negative comments that I have….it’s very “churchy.” The language on the entire rest of the site (yes I read it all) is very personal….like a letter home from an old friend, but this one section uses church terminology and feels formulaic…almost as if they used an old 3-point sermon outline for this part. My suggestion would be to be more human and heart felt in this as well. [...]