Following on from yesterday’s post, I’d add some further thoughts.
The most important part of any response to our situation is that we do so as a church. It is true that there *may* be insights from such disciplines as marketing, management and PR which might be helpful in framing a response. I emphasis the ‘may’ and ‘might’ here because, although there may be superficial similarities between the church other institutions, at heart they are fundamentally different. If we neglect the difference, we will destroy the church.
For purposes of comparison, take pubs. I mentioned yesterday that pubs in Britain are closing at an unprecedented rate (faster than churches!) and implied that I believe that this decline is a symptom of the same social changes which are behind decline in church membership. I stick by that, and it’s a theme which I intend to return to in another post. A commenter yesterday rightly pointed out that though pubs are in decline, people are continuing to buy and consume alcohol, and indeed are ‘eating out’ more than ever. The hospitality industry has to change and adapt to continue to sell it’s product. He went on: “People still have spiritual needs but is the insistence on 11.00 am on a Sunday the best way to meet all those needs?” In one sense, dead right. Of course, the church needs to adapt, to be the Body of Christ incarnate in the world. But. And this is a big but. The church is not an institution with a product to sell, in competition with others selling something similar. What we have is a life to live, a life we have the duty and privilege of inviting others to share with us. As Kim said, the church is not “a service and therapeutic industry”. And we are most assuredly not in the business of enticing customers, building brands, and targeting demographics.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
tortoise 04.23.08 at 10:56 am
I’m inclined to agree; if we seek and accept wholesale a “marketing strategy” then we risk trapping ourselves in a marketplace mindset, whereas if we reject on principle any notion of PR-effectiveness then the danger is of “splendid isolation”, perhaps to the extent even of welcoming decline as a de facto sign of dogged faithfulness. I suspect that an appropriate balance may be fiendishly hard to discern.
A word that’s often touted in our circles, particularly with regard to forms of worship, is “relevant”. But I’m not sure we really understand what we’re saying when we use that word. Here’s something I wrote about it last month.
Methodist Preacher 04.23.08 at 11:38 am
This is a wordy way of justifying inaction. You want to keep a lid on the Gospel. You should read my post:
http://methodistpreacher.blogspot.com/2008/04/lets-end-methodisms-war-on-lost.html
I don’t think you get it. You are living in the recent past. It is time for Methodism to move on.
Be part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Richard 04.23.08 at 4:05 pm
MP - I’m struggling to work out how a communications expert such as yourself could think that your reply here is a useful contribution to a conversation. What you’ve written amounts to an ad hominem attack that completely fails to engage with the issues raised.
I’d already read your post, but I completely reject the basic premise on which it rests, namely that there has been a long term war within the Methodist Church against real Christians. Frankly, that’s absurd. I accept that you’ve had some bad experiences, but to project that experience on to the rest of the church is too big a stretch.
The Tortoise’s post was very helpful. Thanks, T.
Kim 04.23.08 at 4:19 pm
Hi David (MP),
As I am not a Methodist, let me replace “Methodism” with “the church”, to have you say that “It is time for the church to move on.” Is that fair? If so, then the question which Richard and others have raised is: “Okay, you want to move on, so do we, but we are are not sure that the church you will take with you will remain the church of Jesus Christ.” In particular, you have not answered the concerns that have been raised about your marketing approach to the gospel, rather you have have testily responded with (political?) rhetoric about living in the past, and being part of the problem, etc. Have you read any serious critiques of your nostrums? Do you know, for example, John Drane’s The McDonaldization of the Church (2000), or David Fitch’s The Great Giveaway (2005)? Or take this passage from Stephen Pattison’s The Faith of the Managers: When Management Becomes Religion (1997):
“… many people regard management as simply a set of ‘neutral’ techniques that, like money or nuclear power, can be selectively used as a means to an end. This … needs to be problematized within the religious community. As we have seen in the case of the introduction of management into the public health sector, management techniques and methods actually shape and change organizations and groups. Particular ways of doing and thinking about things are value-laden. They render some things visible and possible, other things insignificant. Techniques for gaining clarity of purpose and vision may push religious groups to exclude width of concern and different interests. Up-to-date accounting techniques may encourage them to become even more preoccupied with what can be counted and measured and less able to deal with the value of the intangible.”
Pattison highlights other elements of management and marketing theory and practice that are theologically dubious, e.g. their fierce pragmatism which amounts to a form of Pelagianism. These are very serious criticisms. It will not do simply to accuse Richard et. al. of being Luddites. We are raising serious theological issues which demand a serious theological response, which, quite irresponsibly, not to say discourteously, you are failing to supply. Do I detect an anti-intellectual, indeed anti-theological, bias to your faith? I hope not, because then it wouldn’t be just rhetoric to suggest that it is you who are part of the problem.
Unless you doubt our good faith and think that we are just a bunch of time-servers, we all want to move the church forward. It is just that some of us are wary about putting snake oil in the tank.
fatprophet 04.23.08 at 9:14 pm
It’s a good job you weren’t at our synod on Saturday as we had a guy talking to us from LICC about our communications and it was I felt leaning towards the sort of thing I would expect in my working life. Very much as if we got a product that we needed to advertise