Aside on 1 Thessalonians 2:1-16

Aside on 1 Thessalonians 2:1-16
Theme: Who is our customer


Introduction:
My kids and I were horrified the other day to discover the very first original McDonald’s television commercial from the 1950’s or 60’s on youtube. It was horrifying not only because of how cheesy it was and how it was tied to the naïveté of the culture of the day, but also horrifying because of the clown who was the first Ronald McDonald. When my kids saw him their jaws dropped. I wasn’t sure if he reminded me of the kind of predator who becomes a clown in order to gain access to children, or he if he reminded me of the inspiration for horror films like Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street. That was the commercial that started it all…

Did you know that modern advertising (the kind you see on television and Radio as well as in magazines, billboards and the internet was originally conceived by snake oil salesmen in the mid-1800’s? They were itinerant huksters who travelled from town to town selling potions that they claimed could cure everything from arthritis, cancer and the common cold to being a magical youth potion.

The snake oil salesman would come into town, set up his booth and loudly proclaim the virtues of his merchandise. His promotions would include written testimonies and stories from people who had used the product successfully. The testimonies would include a description of how bad life was before they tried the snake oil, their initial skepticism and how they discovered it and then the salvation from sickness that it brought to them after they used it- it was like being born again.

They learned their craft from the itinerant evangelists and big tent revival meetings they encountered when they travelled from town to town. In fact, they often followed evangelists from town to town and set up their stores in front of the revival meetings and duplicated the ‘sales pitch’ of the evangelist- salvation from hemorrhoid hell, or age hell, or fat hell or whatever hell they claimed to cure- the only difference was the product.

Coca-cola was one of those early snake oils. It gets its name from the fact that it originally contained Cocaine and it was first sold as a medicinal product to cure things like morphine addiction, headaches and impotence (I guess that’s what they meant by “Have a Coke and a Smile”). It was Coke advertising that gave us our modern concept of Santa Clause- the god of commercialism who has become the real hero of the Christmas story. You can blame Coke ads for the commercialization of Christmas.

Of course advertizing has become a refined and sophisticated multi-billion dollar a year industry that really drives our economy. I bet everyone here benefits in some way from advertizing- whether for good of for ill. Advertizing has become a very complex industry that use sociology, economics, demographics, psychology, mesmerism, art, music, therapy, humour, linguistics, film, photography, acting, and (I am sure) a few things learned from the Nazis, the KGB and the CIA.

Here’s where the church comes into the picture: in around the 1950’s practitioners of church growth began to apply marketing and sociological principals to church growth.

That’s how Robert Schuller got his start, he followed the business model of drive-in restaurants and theatres by planting the first drive-in church (in California of course); it later became the Crystal Cathedral when the Television replaced the car as the engine of the economy and pop culture. In fact, Schuller is one of the founding leaders of the modern church growth movement. He is so committed to his man centred approach to church growth that he recently fired his own son for preaching about sin and biblical doctrine at a time when church giving took a dive.

Two of Schuller’s most successful disciples of church growth are Bill Hybels who started the Seeker Sensitive church movement and Rick Warren who gave us the Purpose Driven church with its mission statements and demographic profiling of composite target membership prospects.

It’s nearly impossible to find a church today that is not in some way influenced by the church growth, felt needs, positive thinking, seeker sensitive, man centred, gospel marketing movement. I saw a church in the local newspaper trying to draw seekers by claiming to be a church for those who don’t like church! Here are some other church advertising slogans:
• “Free Trip to heaven. Details Inside!"
• "Try our Sundays. They are better than Baskin-Robbins."
• "Searching for a new look? Have your faith lifted here!"
• "Looking at the way some people live, they ought to obtain eternal fire insurance soon."
• "This is a ch_ _ ch. What is missing? U R"

Now that’s all cute and funny. But here’s the problem with church marketing- its all man centred- it appeals to felt needs and it’s (more often than not) directed at believers who are already attending other churches. And the most successful churches are not always the ones who have had massively successful evangelism campaigns, as much as they have been churches that have been massively successful at drawing believers from other churches by appealing to the converted with ads like, “Our sermons won’t make you feel uncomfortable”.

The Commercialization of the church has resulted in a low fat, decaffeinated, less filling, extra foam, sippy cup to-go gospel that is more of a self help pep talk then it is a message about how to rescue souls from eternal damnation.

I think the extent to which the Holy things of God have been trampled by man centred church marketing is epitomized in this description of a Christian Rock concert entitled “Christapalooza”:
…I noticed… the abundance of holy merchandise. The Gorge was literally transformed for the weekend into an impromptu strip mall for Christ, with eager shoppers partaking in a variety of blatant consumer activities, each one underwritten by God and bearing the consistent trademark of a muscular and belligerent Jesus Christ. ….Forget the stuff about camels squeezing through the eyes of needles and the difficulties of rich people getting past the pearly gates; access to heaven is on a strictly cash-and-carry basis these days. Beneath the broad tents set up throughout the grounds there were Christian entrepreneurs hawking all manner of Jesus gew-gaws: T-shirts, bumper stickers, glow-in-the-dark crucifixes, Bibles, interpretations of the Bible, compact discs, key chains, and jewelry.
The incredible adaptability of Christianity to modern marketing techniques was fully evidenced in the logo-mongering and sloganeering that marked these products. ....This iconic appeal to such gross capitalist sensibilities is one of the most tragic aspects of modern Christianity's loss of substance. Christ, as a spiritual product, has undergone a stunning military-industrial make-over, emptied of content and shrink-wrapped for the television generation. It's sick. It's everything Mark Twain and Friedrich Nietzsche ever feared about the Christian church -- greed and hypocrisy masquerading as righteousness.

And do you not see the irony that after 50 years of the use of marketing and social sciences in church in North America (which promised to bring in the Kingdom of God) that the church is hemorrhaging members and losing an entire generation to Eastern religion and new age mysticism. 50 years later we are more godless than ever!

Listen to this, its from an article entitled the Coming Evangelical Collapse (and these types of articles are increasing exponentially),
We are on the verge – within 10 years – of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity. Within two generations, evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its occupants. (Between 25 and 35 percent of Americans today are Evangelicals.). (M Spencer, CSM, 03/10/09).

Application
So with that in mind, I want to propose something radical and revolutionary. If you read my article in this months issue of the Gate, you will know where I’m going with this. But I don’t think that it’s too radical. I think it was Paul’s strategy and he patterned it after Jesus. Remember the time Jesus rolled into Nazareth (Luke 4) at the height of his popularity and they gave him an opportunity to seal his popularity for ever by letting him preach and what did he do? He went and blew it and nearly got himself killed preaching without concern for how it would offend his hearers; in fact, I think he knew that they would get mad and said it anyway.

Jesus preached to offend and Paul did the same thing; when he came to Corinth- he said he determined to nothing but Christ crucified, the very thing that was an offense to the Jews and stumbling block to the Gentiles. Can you imagine the email dialogue between Paul and his denominational leader:
Dear Onysemus, I have arrived in Corinth and I feel God is leading me to plant a church here.
Paul

Dear Paul, Sounds great. Have you done any demographic research and felt needs analyses to determine your strategy?
Onysemus, Phd.

Dear Onysemus, No need- they’re Jews and Greeks. My strategy is the know Christ and Him Crucified.
Paul

Dear Paul, but that’s an offense to the Jews and a stumbling block to the Greeks. It’ll get you killed. Your funding may also get cut.
Onysemus, Phd.

Onysemus, Yeah, that’s what happened to Jesus so I kind of expect it will happen to me too.
Paul

That was Paul’s strategy in Thessalonica too! In fact, it got him evicted from the city. Afterwards he wrote to them to remind them of his strategy,
…our coming to you was not in vain. 2 But even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict. 3For our exhortation did not come from error or uncleanness, nor was it in deceit. 4 But as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel, even so we speak, not as pleasing men, but God who tests our hearts.

Notice how God-centred and God-enraptured and God pleasing Paul’s ministry was? In fact, the opposite of his God pleasing ministry was man pleasing (v.4). To Paul, preaching that flatters and pleases men by tickling their itching ears is error, uncleanness and deceit!

I am not sure if I am going to unpack this any more in the weeks to come, I can only wait to hear from God, let me leave you with a paraphrased quote from “The Divine Conquest” by A.W. Tozer and then I will give a quick application:
…in their pride men assert their will and claim ownership over the [church]. …God is admitted only by man’s sufferance. He is treated as visiting royalty in a democratic country. Everyone takes his name on their lips… but behind all this flattery men hold firmly to their right to [church according to their own culture bound sin inspired preferences]. …Man will have it understood that this is his [church]; he will [determine the content of its worship, the direction of its mission, and the rules which will be obeyed]. Man bows to [God on Sunday morning] and as he does, [he] manages with difficulty to conceal the crown upon his own head. (p. 45-46).

My fear is that the church has become just like the pop culture that surrounds us (syncretism)! It’s like a fish that can’t know that it’s wet because its surrounded in water. Our fate will be the same as the fate of the snake oil hucksters who promised a product that was powerless to produce the things it promised. Or we will become like that original McDonald’s commercial, a joke, a caricature of the culture, a jaw dropping horror. The Bride of Christ will be the Brittany Spears sideshows of religion.

So here’s what I am proposing. I’m not saying we throw out church marketing, because as we have seen by the success of companies like Coke and Apple and McDonalds that it works. What I am proposing is that we throw out the customer and exchange it for another. Instead of fallen man as our customer, let’s market ourselves to God. Instead of appealing to men’s need to be comfortable, let’s come up with catchy slogans about our prayer meetings. Let’s get Gods attention and appeal to His felt need by singing praises that glorify the majesty of God. Instead of telling people to join us because they will discover their life’s purpose, let’s preach the gospel of sin and repentance and faith in a crucified and risen messiah and just trust God to make it effective. Instead of using human relations principles to reduce conflict and increase a sense of community, let’s utilize God relations principles by following his example, His command to be merciful to one another and forgiving towards each other so that God, not seekers, will see that this is the kind of church that He would like to be a part of.

Its not rocket science; its not revolutionary; it’s probably won’t save evangelicalism from the demise of the culture wars…. Its just faithful biblical Christianity. And it’s worked pretty well for us for the past 2000 years. It worked under the Roman persecutions. It worked under the Catholic inquisitions, it works in the underground Chinese church. It’ll work in 21st century secular, man centred Surrey British Columbia.