From High Brow Pirate to Hometown Pastor

I know marketing and how to get the word out.  I just do not see the tools used in the business world as always appropriate for the church.  Maybe for some churches, but not all.  Anyway, before some of you think I am just some hippie idealist who hates corporate America, I need to give you a little background.

From 2004 to 2007 I ran two small enterprises.  Silver Strand Solutions and GigaStrand Computers.  Silverstrand was a Linux migration consulting firm and GigaStrand was (at the time) one of a few companies out there selling computers with warranties that had Linux installed on them.  Running this small operation out of my house with a small band of cohorts we were able to get some clients that included names like Linspire, Novell, State of Indiana Board of Education, Intel, Microcenter, and a few others of note.  End of the day, I know how to use marketing and drive a successful campaign.  Just because something works, though, does not necessarily mean you should use it.  Frankly, I am no longer convinced many of these tools work as well as some think in the church.  Though some of these tools may get the desired result of more butts in the seats, I wonder if it is sending the wrong message and becomes a "bait and switch".  The irony of bait and switch by the church is that in the business world it is generally considered unethical and in some cases, illegal.  But that is not the point of this entry.

The point of this entry is this.  I have spent the last few entries venting some frustrations I have had about business as usual, but not offering a better way.  I am not so myopic as to think that what I propose is THE way or even a BETTER way, but it is an alternative that I feel more comfortable embracing.  At our last service we spoke about how we are almost a year old and now that we have a better grasp of who we are as a community, we want to start inviting other people to come to the party with us.  Why?  We feel there is safe harbor in this community and it is a great place to explore those deeper spiritual questions and make a difference.  We do not wanna have pizazz and zing and wow factors, we just want to extend a simple and honest invitation and be honest about what we are inviting people to.

So last Sunday I took out a easel and marker and we wrote down some things as a community.  We wrote about LifeBridge and YASO and here is what ended up on the board.

We ARE:
Open Minded
Accepting
Reality
Loving
Conversation (everyone has a voice)
Direct
Open hearts eyes and ears (togetherness)

We Are NOT:
Pressuring you to conform
Snarky
Phony Smile Sunday personality
a Right Wing-Republican-White Man Empire
Hypocritical bunch of legalistic pharisees
no dancing around touchy subjects like other places.
manipulative
money hungry

About Lifebridge:
We Talk about God stuff
Open up
Conversation
Freedom of Expression
Every day People-not perfect

About YASO:
Eye opening
Understanding environment
Youth group, but not
Group Therapy, but not

What is not in this picture? We never mention the music, kids programs, and other wow points.  We have a simple identity and now we want to tell people about that and invite them to it, if they want to come.  In a good marketing arc, you want to create awareness of a problem and show how your product or service is best suited to solve that problem.  But the gospel and a gospel community is not a product or a service, it is a journey.   How do you invite people on a journey or a quest?  The best way is to do it honestly and conversationally.  As community we have decided that there are other valid ways to invite people on a journey.  We still have to have a few meetings about the matter so I cannot tell you what we will do yet, but I can tell you that it is likely we will use the same tools some marketers use.  The internet, social networking, newspapers, press releases, stickers, etc.  But these tools are used by many other people other than marketers.  Websites and Social Networking groups are too vast to rationally discuss here, press releases talk about a great many things, newspaper ads are not always ads.  If you look at older papers that pre date the internet and telephones, you will find that people used the paper to communicate social events in simple and honest ways.  Not much wow factor was added to a bridge game at the Smith’s house..unless cucumber sandwiches being served is a wow factor.  Stickers and posters….okay…these are mostly used for marketing, but in our message, the stickers will say…

" As Christians, we’re sorry for being self-righteous, judgmental bastards."  Why?  Well, we feel the apology is overdue.

Because we embrace the conversation, much of what we say and do in this will likely be very conversational and verbose in it’s nature.  I doubt we will use a newspaper ad, for instance. I am not sure what you could put on a 3 by 5 inch section of print about this.  I also doubt we will do direct mailers.  My issue there is the impersonality of it all.  With a sticker or a website or a youtube link or a facebook page, there is an opportunity to interact and someone can share with someone else the link or the sticker or whatever.  You send a mailer and you look like you are trying to sell something no matter how well and honestly it is written. 

I will keep you in the loop of our next steps, but for now, I wanted to tell you a few things that were important to me.

1. There is a difference between invitation and marketing even though some of the same tools are used.

2.  We wanted our community more established in its identity before we started inviting people more broadly to it.

3.  We wanna be honest and would rather state who we are than talk up the music, preaching, art supplies for kids, and have pictures of a bunch of multi ethnic smiling people of a borad age range.  All of those tings are images, something you project…we want people to know our identity…who we are.  If they like that…cool, if they do not…cool.

As I share my personal experiences about the planting process I am not suggesting that I am angry about my experiences nor am I casting judgments on those who helped us plant.  As critical as I am of current planting trends, I am not even saying that they are wrong.  What I am saying is that the core concepts of planting is the most important thing and that the methods of the bricks and mortar are less essential in their mechanisms.  The paths and directions that I wanted to take and had to fight for are not THE way to do it, but A way to do it that is just as valid in my humble opinion as the conventional ways.  End of the day, planting coaches need to be flexible and allow for differing external visions and expressions of church community as opposed to firmly creating and multiplying clones of your own experiences and visions.

If the core beliefs about Jesus, the Gospel, Mission, and Incarnational living are solid and the planter has a honest grasp of these things, then the expression of church community and the founding of that church community can, and should be allowed to differ.  

What was in my heart was to reach the dissillusioned and the ones with many hurts and demands put on them by the church.  The methods I felt compelled to use were wonderful for the "seekers" and the "unchurched" and for a plant where the planter is called to reach those people that is fine.  But when you are reaching the disillusioned and the burned, a different toolbox is needed.  I know of a pastor in Boystown in Chicago who reaches to the GLBT community and his expression and invitations are different than mine and the methods I was asked to use.  There is a church starting on the strip in Vegas trying to reach prostitutes and addicted gamblers…again, different methods.  What of the church trying to reach the homeless community…snazzy music and four color flyers may intimidate them.  It is the same gospel, but there are different expressions of reaching people and loving them and one size does not and cannot be expected to fit all.

In my case (to summarize), door hangers do not earn trust or open the opportunity to earn trust, the music does not have to be perfect (sometimes there is no music), and a conventional core would have been detrimental.  Further, in this first year the community helped form what we are as opposed to us forcing hopes and dreams into it.  Now, almost a year later, we are prepared to invite others to join our community now that we know what we are inviting them to.  

I do hope this better explains my frustration.  It is not with the methods themselves, it is that there needs to be room and allowances for trailblazers and callings that have different external expressions.  Counter culture sometimes means being counter to the conventional methods within the church and if we want to survive in this emerging post modern world, we have to become flexible to these alternative visions and expressions of community.

Ah marketing and models.  In my planting efforts I was having so much fun going into diners and bars and bowling alleys and street corners (literally) and getting to know people and talk to them about Jesus and LifeBridge and what church is not and what it could be and what they wanted it to be.  Then I was made (I suspect unintentionally) to feel compelled to design flyers, gather volunteers, and "canvass the neighborhood" with these four color door hangers.  I was told that this would define who in my core group meant business and who didn’t.  This would show who was willing to work for this and who was not.  So not only was it marketing, but it was some kinda weird test of dedication for my new friends.  My new friends were, like me, walking into bars and bowling alleys and diners and street corners and having the time of their lives meeting people one on one and talking about life.  When I told them about the door hanger plan, they looked at me and could not understand the logic.  I related with them and told them that this was not my idea and when they asked if it was okay if they did not take part in this because it felt commercial, I told them they did not have to. 

I went and passed out the flyers and felt dirty the whole time.  I was conflicted and this was the opposite of what was in my heart.  I was told that behind every door was a story and that story had hearts and needs and I was asked if I wanted to know that story?  Hell yes!  But I get to know that story when I meet them, not when they look at a four color graphic with a clever slogon that looks no different than any other church marketing ploy.  Not one person came in from those flyers and if any of you are reading this, I am so sorry.  I hope you at least recycled the blank side for notepaper or something.  

That same day was the day that I found out that music was not only about worship, but it was also about marketing.  See, this was a scant few weeks prior to the first service and I did not have all my ducks in a row to the satisfaction of my mentor for worship music.  I was fine with it because I knew the community that was forming and the direction we were heading.  But I was told, and I quote, "Do not underestimate the power of awkward music to drive people away from your church.  The last planter underestimated the music and he failed.  Your pulling the trigger here and you are not taking this seriously."  Oh, I WAS taking it seriously.  As far as our music, a year later I will tell you that it is okay and decent from a technical standpoint, but everyone there likes it and it is ours.  Sometimes *gasp* we do not have music.  This last week, my singer got sick and could not make rehearsal and then on Saturday, my guitarist got sick.  So we did not have any music and we still worshipped God without song, but with sincere hearts and NOT ONE PERSON MINDED!

So what do you do different?  This first year was based mostly on word of mouth only.  Our numbers started strong, around April many people left as more and more youth came in with messy lives and tripp pants and our numbers now are less than what they were that first week.  Our money is almost non existant.  What do we have?  We know who we are and what we are and we can now know WHAT we are inviting people to becuase we have an identity as opposed to a rpepackaged plan.  We will use some stickers, we will use you tube videos, we will use tools, but we will use them honestly and without "zing" and wow factors.  We will be simple and honest and the power to spread the invitation still happens on the road because someone has to hand someone a sticker, give a link, and talk about it.  But we waited a year before we even considered a sign.

During my planting internship I learned about this wild Messiah who did not play by the rules of society.  He was so counter culture that the religious elite conspired with governmental forces to kill him.  He spent his time with unsavory people and loved them without condition.  He spoke against not only the norms of government and society, but also the norms of religious thought.  This was revolution and love and messiness and poetry and wonder.  Some of my best and most formative thoughts on Jesus came in a condensed time of nine months that I will be eternally grateful for.  But then came the disconnect.  In following this wild messiah and making disciples that follow in his yoke of beautiful chaos was reduced to formulas and tests and other things that did not compute.  It reminded me of Bible College.  They (Bible College) taught me Hermeneutics-the science of interpreting the Bible.  They gave me the tools to read and interpret and understand for myself.  But when my questions got too uncomfortable or challenged assumptions they held dear, I was being misguided and somehow in error.  I used the tools too well for my own good.  Now here I am, given the gift of a wild messiah with a revolutionary message and call and as I try to walk in His yoke with the very tools of understanding given to me, I was told to ignore it temporarily for pragmatic purposes. 

This whole process of having a core was very troubling to me.  Jesus surrounded himself by the "not good enoughs" and they went out to reach the marginalized and the hurting and the ignored and the honest questioning people who were also "not good enoughs".  How could I reach out to the people who Jesus reached out to with a bunch of people who had the same ingrained bad habits I did and were as out of touch with the world as I was?  To have some of my bad habits broken, I had to go through a personal little "deprogramming" session that took many months and happened one on one.  It just seemed to make more sense to me to strike out with a bunch of people who were in the margins and fed up with churches and say,"hey! let’s chase after the kingdom together!"  So that is exactly what I did.  My planter support group was not offering me core volunteers and yet I had to find them.  So I got them from bars and blogs and bowling alleys and was very careful (though honest) about what I said about my "core".  My core also had some seasoned vets of the faith who are very good people with genuine hearts.  But ya know what?  None of those people are here anymore.  There was not enough offered for them and they needed to be "fed" and they went on to places that could better offer them what they were looking for.  I bear them no ill will and knew from day one that this was not what they were ready for and what they needed.  I tried to tell them what we were chasing as honestly as I could.  

Over the last year since our "launch", the true core I knew was out there developed.  Most of the pre start faces are seen no more and a new batch of people have emerged.  They are honest, raw, rough around the edges, and are beautiful.  They have taken early steps into discipleship and mission without knowing the words for it and they are trying to get others to walk in this journey with them without knowing the subculture and the Christian folkways and mores.  They do not have money, they do not have power, most of them are under 25, and their lives are messy…but they know what is important and they get the core aspects of this journey (the kingdom of God, mission, and the great commission to name a few) more than most Christians I know who have been in the individualistically based faith subculture for years and years.  

As opposed to having a seasoned core that would then decide what others needed and and formulating an offering for them, we spent this year letting the wheat and the chaff sift itself out and becoming a community with a small group of people who know what they identity IS as opposed to what we hope it to be.  They are now ready to invite others into this journey with them.   I went to the beach and asked some people to drop their net and take a journey with me as opposed to the synagogue.  The beaches and the bars and the streets are where we find the people of the beatitudes, also known as the salt of the earth. 

I think that anyone who has read this blog a few times can guess that I am not too hip on the takeover of business in the church.  I think this is especially prevalent in the church planting racket.  We have developed management training, marketing arks, business strategies and whole bunch of other stuff based on corporate America.  As I have said many a time, if imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, then the church is proving itself to be very enamored by corporate America.  Hell, we kiss corporate America’s ass and have made marketing and strategic planning our idols.  The funny part is, our current economy, the recent Wall Street Crash, the housing crisis, and the over ten percent unemployment figures should tell us that the emporor of consumerism and business strategy has no clothes.  But here we are, using a failed tools, tests, and methods and assigning God to them. 

Though my first beef is not closely related to business strategy, it is related.  In starting churches it is standard practice to have a core group.  As an emerging missional guy, this is a hard one to swallow.  The need for "mature" christians to sit in a room and plot and plan how we are going to bring in and attract real people who are outside the church.  The problem is, that the "converted" know how to reach the other "converted" and you often end up with consumer Christians looking for the latest music, kids programs, and other stuff that does not matter.  Well, it does not matter to those outside the church, but it matters for the consumer Christian.  The problem is that you end up being beholden to these people and you end up performing so much maintenance to keep them happy that you never really do get to fulfilling the mission.  Let me give you an example.  I was once talking to a planter who was getting ready to start a church in a city with needs.  This city has two sides to it.  One side is affluent and the other side is poor.  He claims to be missional, and when he talks about the city’s needs he always talks about the poor side.  So, I asked him, why start on the affluent side when the need is on the poor side?  He said he would leverage the affluence of the rich side to one day make a greater impact on the side with immediate need.  Do you kind of see my problem?  How many years will this take and how many people will he have to appease while people lose homes, live in fear of violence and street gangs, and suffer abuse and marginalization?  What of the needs of the wealthy side?  Rich people have hurts too.  He will spend so much time administering to them with his sensitive and caring nature that he will only have token efforts to the hurting that serve mainly to make the wealthy feel good.  It is backwards…people like Shane Claiborn and  Mother Teresa just go to where the need they claim to have a heart for and do it with what little you have and let God guide the way. 

Now, I realized I strayed, but I just thought of an analogy with my problem of the core group stuff. Imagine Jesus, instead of grabbing his motley crew of fishermen, women, tax collectors, and so forth to change the world and start this movement, he had gone with the core group principle.  He would have to take some mature Jews who know the law…so….maybe a core group of Pharisees and Sadducees.  They would all then sit in regularly scheduled meetings and discuss rationally how they are going to reach the hookers, the centurions, the lepers, and all the rest of the people that they have proved themselves to be painfully out of touch with.  They would also need to work on fund raising, financial viabilities, find some space to rent, and create an awareness marketing campaign.  Then, and only then, would they be ready for a first service and invite everyone-who already does not trust them-to come and see this wonderful new event.

Now that we are almost a year old and it is evident that I have nothing to lose since no one is offering us anything and we are bastard children not getting child support, I may as well discuss openly what I think is a different, and valid way to try things. What I am about to suggest in my next entry is not a better way per se, but it is a different way.  When you hear me speak against different mindsets, please understand that I am not speaking AGAINST anyone or trying to vilify, I am trying to grow out of that.  I am expressing some frustration that I never had the opportunity to be openly different and instead had to test the waters and strike out on my own in what has proved to be a very lonely journey.  Mostly, I am expressing facts as seen through the lense of my existence.  Try not to hold it against me.  There will be a part two to this coming along shortly, I just did not want to make this entry too long.