Marketing vs Mission

On Thursday I blogged about attractional vs incarnational ministry today I want to talk about marketting vs mission.

Many churches try and brand themselves into a niche.They're good at kids ministry or they have great worship or they have some particular aspect of ministry they are good at and they attract people because of that ministry. That is not always a bad thing, but if you win them with music and then your music begins to change or is not quite as sharp as it was, then you lose people. Or if the church down the road offers 'better' worship then the people will move there. Marketing becomes the name of the game.


Think of it like restaurants. We find one that has great burgers and we go there, until a better burger is offered somewhere else. We're fickle and we move to where we get the best deal. But if we know the restaurant owner we stay because the food is good, but also because he offers us things other restaurants can't: that personal relationship, the shared joke, the special corner table and care that cannot be matched.


Our aim is to offer Jesus because Jesus is always the best thing out there, and simply nothing on this earth matches a relationship with him!


I'd encourage you and those you lead to take seriously the call to take Jesus into the world. We ALL are ALWAYS on mission for him. 2 Corinthians 5:20 reminds us "...we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." and the faithful Apostle Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 1:23 "we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles"   


This is true for all Christians, and especially so for us as leaders.


Our God-given calling is not to offer anything else other than Jesus and him crucified. If you miss that, you will miss everything.


KidsChurch is there to offer our children Jesus and nothing more. Whilst we might use other things to help with lessons, create drama or excitement, we don't lose the big picture - its always, only about Jesus and his eternal grace that saves us from death.


In HomeGroups it is great to have debate about election and the end times or whatever other contentious issue is at hand. But if we don't point people to Jesus through the scriptures we've missed the point entirely. You might as well become a cheese and wine club instead of the disciple making team you're called to be.


In our Worship Teams we can sing song about our longing for God, or our devotion to him, but the lyrics that make the biggest impact are the ones that remind us of Jesus eternal love, his unfathomable grace, his perfect justice and his awe-inspiring glory!


Let's never loose the mission focus that the church has had since the very beginning. Our great treasure is Jesus as it is our honour to take Jesus and nothing but Jesus into the world so that knees would bow, tongues confess and hearts believe so that Jesus would be glorified!