Currently, more and more church leadership conferences focus on the use of business techniques and language in the church. I firmly believe that we can not run an organism like the church similarly to an organization like a corporation. But I do believe that the church can appropriately use sales and marketing in daily operations. Many years ago Ted Leavitt, in his book Marketing Myopia, defined the difference between marketing and sales. He defined sales as having a fixed product and finding those who wanted it. For example, when Procter & Gamble sold ivory soap they simply looked for more and more people who wanted to buy floating soap. They were a "sales" company.
Then Leavitt defined marketing as surveying the potential market, finding what buyers want, the price point, and then manufacturing that product. Procter & Gamble moved from a sales organization with ivory soap to a marketing organization developing all types of customer-driven detergents. Marketing organizations usually grow faster than sales organizations. In marketing the control of a product goes from the manufacturer to the consumer.
In business language, the church is both a sales and a marketing organization. The church's product ( the gospel) is established by Christ. It is divine and anointed. Its power is in its purity. Therefore the authentic church has no latitude in modifying the product to fit the consumer's demands. We dare not survey people to find what type of Gospel they want. On the other hand, Christ did not concretize the packaging of the product, which is the presentation. Other than a few restrictions, he left us great latitude in our presentation of the Gospel.
I watched a start-up church with few grow rapidly into the thousands using the marketing concept. The young, dynamic, charismatic pastor told me his formula: "I personally went door to door asking those who didn't attend church what kind of a church they would attend if one existed. No matter what they said, I told them that was exactly what kind of church we were building." Thousands came, and he honestly tried to make good on his word. Unfortunately, he blurred the distinction between the product and the presentation.
I knew many of the early leaders of Youth for Christ. They were men of passion for souls. When they get together they recall the all-night prayer, the sharing of techniques while preserving the Word. They were creative, often theatrical, in the way they packaged the gospel. Yet the truth of scripture was always preeminent. Their mandate remained true: "anchored to the rock, geared to the times."
Recently I was talking with Bill Glass about attracting large numbers of prisoners to the yard who wouldn't go to the chapel. He uses Christian motorcycle gangs to circle the yard, blip-ping their motors, as well as a NASCAR racing champion with pipes blasting. Prominent sports figures, celebrities, famous former prisoners attract the prisoners to the yard in big numbers. A prisoner said, "You take away the grayness of our life." Yet when Bill preaches he never modifies the demands of the gospel. He proclaims, "without repentance there is no redemption. " Perhaps this is what Paul was saying, "I will be all things to all men that I might win some." Yet he never altered the product for the convenience or comfort of the hearers. He condemned anyone who presented a gospel other than the one Christ gave even if the presentation came from an apparent angel. The attraction is in the presentation, the power is in the product.
Inflexibility and dedication to antiquated rituals can limit the penetration and scriptural growth of the church. All around us we see traditional packaging under attack: churches splitting over whether to go conservative or contemporary; hymns are fighting with praise songs; sermons are competing with theatrical productions; scriptural translations are elbowing each other; conversational styles are competing with energetic preaching; participation is breaking outside the ritual. We need to give each other permission to vary the packaging just so long as the product is kept sacred. But, we cannot accommodate the culture if it prevents us from making a clear presentation of the gospel. I believe in baiting the hook, just as Christ did when he talked to the hungry about food, the sick about health, the blind about sight, the lost about being found. However, we must concentrate our efforts on winning souls, not entertaining them, how often have you seen an entertaining , unique advertisement that you enjoyed but, to save your life, you couldn't remember what product it was advertising?
In conclusion, I will confess that personally I am a traditionalist in most of my Christian experience. However, if I'm going to be a realist I have to recognize that many of the new presentations are the way to reach the non-believer. In honesty I must say "full speed ahead" to those energetic, creative, technologically-oriented evangelical leaders who are penetrating and reaching the unchurched. May our latitude and flexibility be ultimately aimed at Paul's admonition, "so that I might win some. "
