“Five weeks to a stress-free you.”  “How to raise great kids.”  “How to prosper financially.”

Not sure if that represents three months worth of sermons at your local evangelical church or adult education courses offered at the local high school?  I’m not sure either these days.

I’ve been posting some thoughts on the seeker-sensitive approach to church ministry over the past few weeks.  One of the hallmarks of this approach is topical preaching designed to speak to “felt needs.”  For example, in a seeker-sensitive church, you’re likely to hear a series on parenting, or managing your money, or dealing with anxiety, with sermons that draw on Biblical wisdom in order to teach you God’s way to raising teens, balancing your budget, or living stress-free.  The goal is to attract people to church by speaking on relevant topics, and then to help people see how the gospel and the way of God is the answer to what they’ve been looking for, better than all the other wisdom out there. 

As a preacher, I’ve struggled with whether or not to adopt this method of preaching.  Read more »

Church.  Marketing.

Two words that should never be in the same sentence, some would say (unless that sentence reads: “the church should never be involved in marketing”).  Marketing the gospel, the argument goes, treating it like another product to be sold, is an affront to God and the ways He builds His kingdom.  Others, however, would disagree, claiming that marketing is an essential part of evangelism, communicating the gospel in a clear and attractive way that brings people into the church and into a relationship with God. 

What do you think?  More importantly, what does God think about the concept of church marketing?
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Last week, I raised the question of whether or not the seeker-sensitive methods of advertising and preaching to felt needs, with the goal of bringing people into the church so that they might eventually hear the gospel, was somehow less Biblical or Christlike than an approach that just preaches the gospel of sin, repentance, and salvation in all its offense and trusts that that approach will be enough.  I gave the example of Granger Community Church in Indiana, advertising their series regarding what the Bible has to say about sex on billboards in their community in order to entice people into their church and create conversation in their region, and asked whether that was a supremely creative expression of evangelism or a shameful display of man-centered methods towards church growth. 

I have heard some critics of the Granger approach to ministry and evangelism point out the dangers of selfish ambition and the (to them) obvious desire of these pastors to have a big church, to be successful in the eyes of the world.  Read more »

In the spring of 2006, a church in Indiana named Granger Community Church, in an effort to reach out to their community and promote a sermon series they were calling “PureSex,” had four billboards put up around its community with the image of entwined male and female feet dangling off of a bed with the words mylamesexlife.com below it.  Upon visiting the website, one would watch a brief flash video asking questions surrounding the topic of sex (e.g. “You know that ‘seemed like a good idea at the time’ thing?  Well, was it?”).  At the end of the video, visitors were re-directed to the church website, where they learned more about the upcoming 5-week series, with sermons entitled: “The Greatest Sex You’ll Ever Have” , “The Language of Lust” , “Straight Talk for Men and Women” , “What Happens in Vegas WON’T Stay in Vegas” and “Porn: What’s the Big Deal?”  Along with the billboards, postcards were mailed out to the community and people in the church were encouraged to invite people as well.

The results were stunning:  Read more »

This past Sunday I had the chance to check out Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw on the Jesus for President tour as it landed at Clark Elementary School in Hartford.  Right off the bat I could tell this was going to be a different experience – after all, how many nationally known Christian speakers would do a tour stop (and a free one at that) in an inner-city elementary school auditorium?  The point of using Clark School, of course, was to bring this message to the level where Claiborne and Haw live (inner city Philadelphia), where their hosts (Hartford City Mission and Hartford Catholic Worker) live and minister, and, they would probably argue, where Jesus Himself would live if He were a Connecticut resident.
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