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Once in a while, Christianity Today gets in right.  Duly acknowledged and
better late than never.

Do I Have a Witness?

Why Jesus didn't say, "You shall be my marketers to the ends of the earth."

Mark Galli | posted 10/04/2007 09:20AM

When we "market," we try to make a larger audience aware of the value of
exchanging a good or service. We assume both parties will benefit from the
transaction. Marketing is a wonderful thing. I like to hear pitches about
products I might use. I like the fact that my publishers pitch my books to a
larger public. Thank God for marketing!

Related articles and links
<http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/octoberweb-only/140-42.0.html#rela
ted> 

But there's a reason Jesus said "You shall be my witnesses," and not "You
shall be my marketers."

Almost no one in America could fail to recognize that marketing-both its
language and culture-has become an epidemic. And that, more unfortunately,
it has become a significant means of "promoting" the church and the gospel
in American Christianity, with billboards, soundbites, slogans, and
come-ons. The language and practice of marketing so saturates the Christian
world, it is difficult to remember a time when it was not so fashionable.

In Jesus' day, marketing was not the rage, but still it was something Jesus
prohibited on many occasions. Take his dramatic healing of a leper, after
which he sternly commanded him, "See that you say nothing to anyone!" (Mark
1:44). Scholars call this repeated behavior "the messianic secret," and many
preachers imagine that Jesus had mostly pragmatic concerns in mind: If word
of his power spread, he not only would have been flocked by crowds, but he
would also have been prematurely crucified by the authorities.

Maybe. But I wonder if soft-pedaling the Good News is intrinsic to the
message. Jesus spoke in parables, he said, not to reveal the Good News but
to hide it: "For those outside everything is in parables, so that they may
indeed see but not perceive, and may indeed hear but not understand" (Mark
4:11). Elsewhere, he specifically tells his disciples not to cast
gospel-pearls before swine. Make something as cheap as slop, and people will
treat it like slop.

Jump ahead 20 centuries, and we find a church that doesn't think twice about
treating the gospel like slop, like fast food. About 30 years ago, the
church-growth movement exploded onto the scene; churches became enamored
with the efficiency of businesses like Disney and McDonald's, and they began
fashioning their life together to meet people's needs in the same sorts of
ways-except that their product was the gospel. So churches became places
where thousands could be served efficiently. And where the message was
served in McSermons that could be easily digested and applied.

And where "marketing" became part of the church's vocabulary.

When the church starts marketing itself or the gospel, something odd is
taking place. It conjures up the idea that the church is offering them some
benefit-all well and good. But it also implicitly suggests that when they
"buy" or consume that good, the church somehow receives some benefit. That's
the assumption of the marketplace: it's an exchange of value for goods and
services.

Should it surprise us, then, that in the same era the church has marketed
itself more and more, neighborhoods and cities are increasingly resentful of
the presence of the church in their communities? Churches today have a heck
of a time trying to get permits for expanding or building because
communities think they're a nuisance. The church has become just another
business exchanging goods and services, albeit spiritual goods and services.

The perception is that as the church markets itself, more benefits will
accrue to the church-more people, more programs, more money, more buildings,
more success. When a neighborhood thinks of the church as little more than
an ever-expanding spiritual business, it is naturally resentful when this
business disrupts the life of the community with parking, traffic, and
late-night meetings.

Should it surprise us that in this church-marketing era, members demand more
and more from their churches, and if churches don't deliver, they take their
spiritual business elsewhere? Have we ever seen an age in which church
transience was such an epidemic?

Should it surprise us that in this era, pastors increasingly think of
themselves as "managers," "leaders," and "CEOs" of "dynamic and growing
congregations," rather than as shepherds, teachers, and servants of people
who need to know God? And that preaching has become less an exposition of
the gospel of Jesus' death and resurrection and more often practical lessons
that offer a lot of "take-away value," presented in an efficient, friendly
manner, as if we were selling cheeseburgers, fries, and a shake?

And on it goes. Let me be clear. There is nothing inherently wrong with
large churches. Medieval Europe was full of them, and I long for the day
when those cathedrals will be full of the worshiping faithful again. I have
been blessed time and again by the ministry of megachurches.

Today churches large and small (the small imitating the large) have
unthinkingly adopted a marketing mentality that, it turns out, subverts
rather than promotes the gospel. We inadvertently imply that the church
benefits as much from the spiritual transaction as does the recipient.
Marketing, by its very nature, contradicts the essence of the gospel
lifestyle of Jesus, who came not to be served, but to expend his life for
others-no exchange implied or expected.

How can we possibly communicate the radical, self-giving love of God to our
culture if we continue to use a method that by its very nature replaces the
notions of sacrificial service for an exchange of goods and services?

We are indeed called to the four corners of the earth to be witnesses of
Christ's transforming love. But witnesses are not carnival barkers.
Sometimes it feels like the church is just another voice shouting for
attention in the marketplace. I wonder what would happen if we quit
shouting, if we quit trying to tell the world how beneficial the faith is or
what a difference going to church can make-and simply told others, when
appropriate, what God has done for us, and let our lifestyle "market" the
message.

Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today. He is the author
of Jesus Mean and Wild: The Unexpected Love of an Untamable God
<http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product/?item_no=012848&p=1006
327>  (Baker). You can comment below or on his blog
<http://www.markgalli.com/galliblog> .

Copyright C 2007 Christianity Today. Click
<http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/help/info.html#permission>  for reprint
information.

Thanks.

For the King's honor,

Charis,

Mike Abendroth

 <http://www.bbcchurch.org> www.bbcchurch.org

Ephesians 3:21 auvtw/| h` do,xa evn th/| evkklhsi,a| 

2 Tim 1:2b  "Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our
Lord."

"Faith is not our physician; it only brings us to the Physician ... Faith is
not our saviour. It was not faith that was born at Bethlehem and died on
Golgotha for us. It was not faith that loved us, and gave itself for us;
that bore our sins in its own body on the tree; that died and rose again for
our sins.  It is a sin-bearer that we need, and our faith cannot be a
sin-bearer. Faith can expiate no guilt; can accomplish no propitiation; can
pay no penalty; can wash away no stain; can provide no righteousness. It
brings us to the cross, . but in itself it has no merit and no virtue.
Faith is not Christ, nor the cross of Christ. Faith is not the blood, nor
the sacrifice; . Our faith does not divide the work of salvation between
itself and the cross. It is the acknowledgment that the cross alone saves,
and that it saves alone. Faith adds nothing to the cross, nor to its healing
virtue. It owns the fulness, and sufficiency, and suitableness of the work
done there, and bids the toiling spirit cease from its labours and enter
into rest. Faith does not come to Calvary to do anything. It comes to see
the glorious spectacle of all things done, and to accept this completion
without a misgiving as to its efficacy. It listens to the "It is finished!"
of the Sin-bearer, and says, "Amen."   

NOT FAITH, BUT CHRIST 

by Horatius Bonar 
(1808-1889) 

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