Marketing Strategy of Jesus

In a day when so much focus is placed on how we market our local church, how should we best do that?  Mailers, radio, TV, door hangers, billboards, etc.  have become the norm for getting the word out.  They work to reach a some and are effective for name recognition, but can also be expensive and not the best use of funds.  There is a strategy that Jesus has for the church and it does not require money, but authenticity and an incarnational life.  

In John 13:34-35 Jesus says these words, "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.  By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another".  

Jesus issues a command, not something that is optional in regard to our relationship with one another.  First we need to see how he loved: 1.  Life investment in them  2.  Loved them in spite of their issues 3. Ultimately he laid his life down in death. --- That is how we should love one another.

If we love and live like him, "all people will know that you are my disciples".  It will be clear to our communities that we belong to Christ when we love one another like he loved.  On the flip side:

When we don't love like he did, people will be confused about who we are and who God is.

This is where we are today - the culture don't get who we are and it is not because we don't have nice buildings, programs, or marketing strategies, but because we have not loved one another the way we have been commanded.

The clearest evidence we are his has nothing to do with buildings, denominations, location, music style, age or race makeup, economics.  This is where much of our focus goes and it is not the answer to effectively making it clear who we are as believers and who  God is.

The local church should be the most loving place in town, not the local bar or other secular organizations.  

The greatest challenge for the local church right now is to become the most loving place in town. 

Are we up to this?

Something From the Past

This week we went to Waco to see my parents for a couple of days.  We had a great time and I was finally able to get all of my old files, tucked away in storage.  Rummaging through one of the files I came across a quote I had once read from Abraham Lincoln.  Enjoy and ponder the significance of his words:

"It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, who owe their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by a history that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.  The awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be but a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people.  Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become to self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.  We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has grown, but we have forgotten God."

Abraham Lincoln, April 30, 1863 - on a day he designated as a day of national humiliation, fasting and prayer.

Navigating Well in These Times

Society has shifted and sadly, in turn, so has the church.  The growing influence of secularism is taking such a toll upon our nation and barring any revival, it is going to get worse.  In some ways, we have gotten to this place because Christian leaders have not navigated the changing landscape well.  Evidence of navigating this landscape well is not found in how big one grows a church or ministry, but rather in how well we grow disciples who authentically walk with God.  The crisis we face now is whether or not we will lead in such a way that keeps people grounded firmly in the truth, regardless of the shifting of our society.  How does one do this?  Here is what Paul said to  Timothy:

¹In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: ²Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. ³For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. ⁴They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. ⁵But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.

Could the reality of so many walking away from the faith and not persevering stem from our failure to preach the Word in every season?  Since we live in a day where people want to be told what they want to hear, we must "keep our head in all situations, endure hardship, and do whatever it takes to fulfill our ministry".  This is no easy task today, especially when people do not want sound doctrine.  Doctrine means embracing truth and postmodernism says there is no real truth but our own.  Since Jesus is the truth, it is he who must remain the center of all we do.  We must embrace our calling to do all of our duties of our ministry.

Security in the Aloneness of Preaching the Word

I have been spending time reading through the letters from Paul to Timothy.  There are no better books for pastors than the  Timothy letters.  For me, Pastoring again has led to want to make sure that I am fulfilling the Biblical mandate of the calling. There have been times after I have preached or during a sermon where I felt alone in my embracing and communication of truth.  There is an aloneness in preaching that can come when you point out the faulty thinking and practices of American evangelicalism or the sin nature that we can all embrace. Not many understand the enormity of calling the church to be only biblical in its functions and in these days I am feeling the weight of my call.  It wakes me up in the middle of the night to pray, forces me to my knees, and moves me to seek Him more in more in the Holy Writ.  Here is what Paul said to  Timothy in the 2nd Letter:

"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.  For the time is coming when people will not  endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.  As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry." 2 Timothy 4:1-5.

The most important thing for me in my calling is to preach the word, when it is popular and when it is not.  It is what will chart the right course for the church.  This is no easy thing, but I would not want any other calling.  In a day where church can be about giving people what they want to hear, I am determined more than ever to proclaim Christ as central to everything and fulfill my ministry.

I have found a security in the presence of God and  Christ Jesus when I am fulfilling my calling to speak the truth people may or may not want to hear.  There is a security in the aloneness of preaching the word when the desire is to say what God wants said regardless of what itching ears long for.  It is the sober-minded who can navigate a body of believers to embrace fully the whole counsel of God and stay away from myths. That is my prayer for my life.   

Preaching Advice

I think we need a new generation of preachers who are not only open to new light that God may shed upon his word, but are also suspicious of their own love of novelty and are eager to test all their interpretations of the Bible by the wisdom of the centuries. - John Piper

Keeping the Gospel Central

Being in Baptist circles I have heard many sermons about Acts 6 and the reason we have deacons.  Not only have I heard countless sermons, but I have had many conversations about the role of deacons in the church.  Please keep reading as my point today is not Deacons. Currently I have been teaching at our church through the major themes from Acts.  This past week we came to Acts 6.  My studying led me to an interesting conclusion, the main focus of Acts 6 is not the establishment of deacons, but there is something deeper happening in the church.

The church is growing and there comes to be a real issue between the Hellenist and Hebrew parts of the church.  The issue was real and needed attention and this issue alone led to the establishment of the role of deacon.  The apostles did not get to a place where they needed an advisory board, etc.   The original deacons were chosen to wait on tables, to be servants, not decision makers.  This ministry and role in the church was instituted to be a servant role, to take care of a portion of the body.  We have drifted from the original intention.

The deeper reason behind the decision to have deacons was for this reason:

"It is not right for us to give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables."  The apostles are not downplaying servanthood, but rather making sure that the teaching and proclamation of the Word of God continues to get the highest nod in the church.  This whole decision to start deacons was so that those who taught and led the church would have the time to prepare and teach the Word to the body of Christ.

The proclamation of the Gospel, keeping it central to body life was why the apostles met and decided the best thing to do was to get men of good reputation, wisdom, and full of the Holy Spirit to be servants, who oversaw the distribution of food to the widows.  

  The church must make every decision it does based on that biblical foundation.    Keep the gospel of Jesus Christ central to everything.  That is the point of Acts 6.  As a result of this decision, Acts 6:7 says, "And the Word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem."

The foremost decision in every church is to make sure those who teach the Word of God do not have things that hinder them in this ministry.  Both ministries were important, but one is central to everything the church does and that is to be guided by the Word.  When feeding widows or any other ministry becomes more important and takes away from the proclamation of the gospel, then the church has moved away from being a gospel centered church.  All of those things are important, but they must flow out of the foundation of proclaiming the story of Christ. 

  

Who Gets to Narrate the World

I do not ever do this, but I want to recommend a book to you.  In a day where there are in my opinion to many Christian Books that espouse ministry philosophies, Emergent Church, and books with Christian Labels that are really no more that "self-help", etc., etc., I have an exception to the vast array of books that don't challenge and call us to live with passion. 

If you are in ministry in what is known as the West, mainly, I am writing to those in Europe and the US, you need to go out today and buy a book entitled, "Who Gets To Narrate the World?" by Robert Webber.  It is 137 pages of truth about where we are in the West and what is needed.  

I read a lot and I have not read anything more significant for those in ministry in the West than this book in a long long time.

If you are not in full-time ministry, get this book and call your church, Life Group, family, Sunday School class to be the ones who engage culture with the gospel. 

Get this book and get it today.