An Answer to Jesus’ Prayer

14 06 2011

Tuesday Re-mix -

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” John 17:20-21

I don’t know how you feel about prayer and its power…or God and His willingness to answer prayer.  But if you are a follower of Christ, I know this about you: you are pretty sure that God will at least answer Jesus’ prayers.  Right?  Yes, me too.  So it is with great interest that I watch the church today to see how God answers Jesus’ prayer for unity in John 17.  I watch, fully expecting that God will work to bring it to pass…the unity of His people, that is.

I have spent the better part of the last two years on a “communications task force” for my church, charged with the responsibility of mapping out a course for our church to update, renovate, and (in some cases) completely re-think how we communicate both outside our walls and within our congregation.  I have loved it.  It is one of the most rewarding assignments I have ever had at my church.  The discussions have been rich as we contemplate an infrastructure for virtually every level of communication.

While much of our focus thus far has been on how we communicate outwardly (I call that “branding”…see, I am not a marketing professional, so I get to use that word any way I like), I remain primarily concerned with how we communicate within the congregation.  I feel strongly about that, because communication is the currency of relationships, and relationships are the building blocks of unity.  There is, then, a crystal clear connection between church communication and church unity.

My church is multi-generational, much like many of your churches are.  And communications among the very diverse generations today is a challenge.  Moreover, my church is a larger congregation (thousands of active members), which presents its own challenges in terms of how effectively we communicate with each other.  We simply must figure out how we are going to tell our stories to each other, how our testimonies can be effectively preserved and shared across the congregation.  We must have systems in place for updated information about people, ministries, and events to get dispersed to everyone who is interested as quickly as they need it.  We must learn to “do relationships” at varying degrees with more people than ever before. And we must learn Biblical accountability within those relationships, which requires the most sensitive communication of all.

Is it any wonder that more and more churches are turning to “communications professionals” to help them answer some of these challenges?  Frankly, I have a hard time imagining how a church of more than a few hundred people could even begin to “preserve the unity of the Spirit” among them without some wise leadership in the area of communications.  And the more opportunity I have to encounter Godly, Christian communications professionals who feel called to use their gifts in the church (writers, media specialists, creatives, Ad/PR folks, graphic artists, speakers, trainers, etc.) the clearer it becomes to me…

…that God is answering Jesus’ prayer for unity in some exciting ways today!

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

Comments : 1 Comment »
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Church Communications, Church Unity, leadership

God’s Goofy Marketing Strategies

24 05 2011

Tuesday Re-mix -

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. Luke 2:8-9

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD.  Isaiah 55:8

I will confess that, when it comes to my ministry, I have struggled over the years with the concept of “marketing”.   I was mostly comfortable leaving that up to God, Who took Five Principles of Unity all over the world and led us to publish it in four different languages in multiple countries without any kind of marketing plan whatsoever.  Still, I do understand that marketing is important.  It is why I have tried to surround myself with people who understand marketing much better than I.  I also must boast that I have come a long way in my own understanding of it, and how important it is that we take some responsibility for getting our message out there and for how we say it.  In fact, I would say that I have made some remarkable progress in terms of accepting “marketing and communications” as an everyday part of what I do…so much so, that I actually give a  little “marketing” advice now and again to others who are just getting started with ministries of their own.

God's Spokesperson

So you can imagine my dismay with how God chose to roll out the initial ad campaign announcing Jesus’ birth.  Let’s just say I would not have done it that way.

Again, I am no marketing expert.  But if I were responsible for getting that very important announcement out there with some hopes of it “going viral” over time (even before the internet), I am certain I would not have started with shepherds.  Neither would you.

Shepherds were guys who did not spend a great deal of time around people.  They were not educated, not articulate, and not terribly creative.  They fought wild animals (lions and tigers and bears, etc.).  Probably didn’t talk much.  They were not what you would call “social networkers”.  In that culture, if a shepherd came up to you and said anything to you at all it would be, well, weird.  But if he said anything meaningful to you about anything other than animals, you probably wouldn’t believe he knew what he was talking about.  He would have zero credibility.  Bottom line, when it comes time to choose a spokesperson for a message about the Savior of the world, shepherds would not even be on a marketing professional’s radar screen, let alone at the top of the list.

Moreover, the shepherds were scared speechless by the announcement.  Again, by conventional wisdom, “speechless” is not an endearing quality for a spokesperson (energizer bunny and a few others notwithstanding).  I honestly do not get it.

But, as always,  God’s choices did seem to work out pretty well even without my best advice.  I just would not have done it that way at all.

So, my recent delving into Luke 2 certainly took its toll on me and on my confidence in marketing strategies.  Not sure what I’ll be saying to my ministry board the next time we meet to discuss, among other things, marketing…and I had made such good progress up until now.  :)

© Blake Coffee
Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Church Communications, strategic planning

Relevance v. Reverence: Can a Church Choose Both?

26 04 2011

Tuesday Re-mix -

I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. I Corinthians 9:22-23

We are not trying to please men but God, who tests our hearts. You know we never used flattery, nor did we put on a mask to cover up greed—God is our witness. We were not looking for praise from men, not from you or anyone else. I Thessalonians 2:4-6

Every once in a while, an athlete comes along who changes the way we think about a sport.  Deion Sanders did that.  Remember this commercial?

People like Deion remind us that our assumptions about settling for “either/or” are sometimes wrong…that sometimes we need to be demanding “both”.

There is a debate among churches today regarding the importance of being relevant versus the importance of honoring tradition and preserving doctrinal purity.  The implication, of course, is that you have to choose…that you can either be respectful of tradition and dogmatic about doctrine, or you can change and become culturally relevant and “user friendly”.

The debate rages on.  One church twists and contorts and becomes almost unrecognizable trying to “become relevant” to its culture, while the church across the street stubbornly sits on several generations of tradition trying to “remain pure” and reverent.  And in the meantime, as they each fight to represent their camp in this debate, their common goal of changed lives and Spiritual power are somehow lost in the arguing.

I don’t know where you have stood in this argument, but I suspect I know where Paul stood.  Paul was one who believed strongly in “becoming all things to all people” and in not trying to be something you are not and in never watering down the gospel in order to please men.  Paul stood firmly with a foot in each camp on this issue.  Paul’s writings resoundingly say, “both!”

But Paul was also brutally honest about the issue, never giving in to other, less honorable motives.  For example, many of those who yell the loudest about maintaining doctrinal purity and honoring tradition are arguing more from a fear of change than from anything Godly.  The arguments sound Godly enough, but that is not where they sometimes come from.  And many of those who contend for cultural relevance are motivated more by a desire to please people, i.e., a thirst for the applause of men, than for anything as Godly as “becoming all things to all men so that some might be saved.”  Those extraneous agendas and motives do tend to muddle things up and to preserve the “either/or” mentality.  But when you take those motives out of the picture and look strictly at the two contending positions (as Paul did), you see the flaw in the “either/or” assumption.

So, as your church tackles this debate, when one side asks you, “Don’t you believe we should speak the gospel in a language our culture understands?” you can say, “Yes, absolutely!”  And when the other side responds with “But don’t you believe in doctrinal purity and respect for the traditions which have served us so well in the past?” you can say, “Yes, absolutely!”  And when the two sides force you to pick one or the  other, you can smile at them with the quiet confidence which can only come from the Spirit of God, and you can say…

…”both.”

© Blake Coffee

Permissions: You are permitted and encouraged to reproduce and distribute this material in any format provided that you do not alter the wording in any way and do not charge a fee beyond the cost of reproduction. For web posting, a link to this document on this website is preferred. Any exceptions to the above must be approved by Blake Coffee.  Please include the following statement on any distributed copy: © Blake Coffee. Website: churchwhisperer.com

Comments : 2 Comments »
Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Categories : Church Communications, Church Unity, conflict, leadership

« Previous Entries Next Entries »


Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 1,159 other followers