GOING ONCE, GOING TWICE

Like it or not as we all know, we live in a market driven world. A world that forces old colleges like Beaver College to change its name to a fictitious name Arcadia and forces overweight band members like John Popper to hide in the shadows of a music video. You can't go anywhere without having a slogan driven down your throat, someone trying to sell you something that will supposedly make your life more efficient, happier, and more satisfying. Drive this, eat here, use this ointment for bee stings, and naturally the purpose of this column, go to this church because.

The church in many ways not only adheres to the market (and purpose driven don't forget, because whatever works and makes money for a Hollywood preacher in California will surely work for you), it sits down on the plushy leather seats and goes for a spin around the city, stopping to visit every slimy agent, sales associate, advertising consultant, and productivity associate along the way.

As churches continue to face depleting congregations and declines in the plate offering as a result, there is an increasing urgency to branch into marketing techniques used to hock every day items we see on television. In a recent article, we learned about a church that tried auctioning off a getaway car on eBay to make some cash. The Bible, you know that book that refers to itself as a double-edged sword with the power of transforming lives, no longer applies and faith is expendable. If you can't offer more activities than the local health club and big enough parking spaces for a fleet of SUV's, you get left behind and reduced to a state where not even a sales pitch from Kirk Cameron can bail you out.

Not all churches can afford a full-time family psychologist or a Fitness for Jesus club or the money to dish out for "outreach" advertising on "secular" cable television or any other kind of marketing, so naturally signs and the location of a church become key. So if you have a big gaudy sign out front, you have a chance for free advertising, which is the very thing that has provided me with so much to talk about in the first place.

See, often times when a pastor or lay leader wants to put out a message to attract attention, they take the Epistles T-Shirt company approach. Rather than come up with something original or subtle (Lord knows evangelicals can't handle subtle; it's either spelled out in black and white or it's suspect), they look to how products are marketed, or better yet they look to a book that they bought at a Christian bookstore, where they can also get plenty of other Jesus junk. Whatever tickles their fancy, out it goes on the sign board for everyone and their brother to laugh, or in some cases like the "Our Sermons are More Uplifting than Viagra", turn their head in disgust to.

We're not sure if that Viagra message was ever placed on a sign board anywhere, but the fact alone that it is in a book should be cause for alarm in the faithfully devoted and often embarrassed believers like myself. Oh yeah, this book also has the message suggestion "Mike Tyson: God will lend you and ear,"a sign idea that obviously dates the book a bit, which is only natural considering that nearly everything marketed in Christian culture is at least 3 to 4 years out of date by the time it hits the streets anyway.

Some living examples of signs ripping off marketing slogans from mainstream companies, or who knows, maybe it was the t-shirt companies that stole the slogans first, were recently spotted.

Two come by way of the Wesley United Methodist Church in Bridgeton, New Jersey ó Sign one and Sign Two. The third sign was seen outside Second United Methodist Church in Millville, New Jersey.

Must be something with the Methodists. It's appropriate though to mention the Methodists with the 300th birthday of John Wesley coming up. Do you think Wesley would have a sign outside his church today if he were alive? If he did, what would it say and while we're on the subject, do you think Charles would still be playing songs he wrote nearly three centuries ago in worship?

Think about that until next time and e-mail me any pictures or stories of signs you spot.

posted 04-11-03

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Matt Ralph is the editor and chief writer of Tangzine. Enough said. E-mail him at matt@tangzine.com

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