“What if church wasn’t just a building, but thousands of doors?” asks a new website launched by the United Methodist Church. “Each of them opening up to a different concept or experience of church. . . . Would you come?” After watching its membership drop nearly 25 percent in recent decades, the United Methodist Church, which is still the nation’s largest mainline Protestant denomination, thinks it knows the answer. So it’s pouring $20 million into a new marketing campaign, including the website, television advertisements, even street teams in some cities, to rebrand the church from stale destination to “24-7 experience.”
“The under-35 generation thinks church is a judgmental, hypocritical, insular place,” says Jamie Dunham, chief planning officer for Bohan Advertising & Marketing, the firm that designed the United Methodist campaign. “So our question is: What if church can change the world with a journey?”
This kind of thing drives me nuts, I admit. While I’m no longer part of the “under-35 generation†(which I don’t think is technically “a†generation, but leave that alone), I’m not that far removed from it, and I can remember reading statements like that for probably 20 of those first 35 years – usually, given by somebody who was a teenager in, oh, about 1968 and was therefore into their 50s. (It doesn’t look like Ms. Dunham is that old, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she got that line from her Boomer client.) And, wouldn’t you know – it was always wrong for me and most similarly-aged people I knew.
Which brings me to my point. Since Bohan Advertising & Marketing doesn’t seem to realize it – remind me never to hire this firm – “everybody under 35†isn’t a segment. So, let’s put it more carefully: young people who have grown up with more leisure time and less direction from their parents than prior generations, and who don’t like being told what to do, and who think the only set of rules they have to live by is whatever they feel like that day, and tend to be politically liberal think church is a judgmental, hypocritical, insular place. Great. Most of us could have told the UMC that for a quarter of the fees. The trouble is, the mainline churches have already been acting on this, and we already know that when you target this segment, most of them still aren’t interested*, and you drive off the rest of your loyal members.
By the way, how about this one? “…the Episcopal Church recently launched a website called ‘I am Episcopalian,’ where half a million church members have uploaded videos explaining their faith.†Get that! 5 out of every 7 of the people who bother to show up at an Episcopal church on Sunday, most of whom are in the demographic that knows nothing about computers, have made videos and uploaded them to their vanity site.
* Which the author nails: “Many young people are more likely to volunteer through college organizations or groups like Habitat for Humanity than by joining a new church. Indeed, some religion scholars say the campaigns’ social justice messages aren’t distinct enough to break through.â€
The problem in the old historic so-called “mainline” denominations isn’t with the lack of good marketing, it’s with the product they’re pushing, which in too many cases isn’t the authentic gospel of Jesus Christ. Spending millions of dollars on ad campaigns may get some people to try the product, but once they see how lousy it is, they aren’t going to want it.
I especially like the incisive critique by Prof. Stephen Prothero, a leading sociologist of religion in this country:
“Study after study has shown that religions that grow are the ones that are hard core in some way. They have something that differs sharply from the culture…”
And he’s right. Dean Kelley set forth that hypothesis way back in the early 1970s with his classic analysis, [b] Why Conservative Churches are Growing [/b]. When the second edition came out in the 1980s, he admitted that he wished he could retitle the book, “Why Strict Churches are Strong.” To a large degree, expectations of commitment are self-fulfilling. People who are really serious about their faith tend to migrate to churches that expect high levels of commitment from their members and especially from their leaders. And the “mainline” Protestant churches have always been very low commitment churches that operated on a European state church type model that valued inclusivity more than zeal.
The leaders of the UMC, TEC, and ELCA are stuck in denial. A slick ad campaign isn’t going to turn them around and reverse their long-standing declines that have continued relentlessly for four decades.
I love how renowned American church historian George Marsden (an evangelical who teaches at Duke) put it years ago, commenting on the demise of the formerly dominant “mainline” groups. He noted that brand name loyalty had disappeared. He aptly compared the situation to buying gas for our cars. People have discovered that all that matters is the price and the selection of octane levels they want. And then came the killer comment: “And the mainline churches don’t even sell high octane religion anymore.”
Ouch. That hurts. But it’s all too true.
And that, folks, is why we simply MUST make the traumatic transition to a high commitment, Post-Christendom style Christianity, including in Anglicanism.
David Handy+
What 2. said although I don’t believe in the ‘Reformation’.
I’d bet you a gold sovereign this mainline marketing doesn’t work.
[url=http://sergesblog.blogspot.com/]High-church libertarian curmudgeon[/url]
There is no mention of Christ Crucified, they are trying to conform the church with the world.
[i]”The under-35 generation thinks church is a judgmental, hypocritical, insular place” [/i]
It’s not about them. I think that’s the message they need to hear. You can’t build or sustain a church with folk who only stick around as long as their back is being rubbed or spins on the axis of the perceived needs of the religious consumer.
As for advertising, it really isn’t necessary. Ask any pastor, these young people can find the church on their own in a heartbeat if they want to be married. No, the issue isn’t informational or motivational. It’s characterlogical. And for that, their parents are to blame. This generation needs help, not pandering.
4, you have said it very well. The church is not now, nor has it ever been, called to become popular in the world in order to draw men, women, and children to it. The Holy Spirit does that, and the Cross of Christ makes it worthwhile.
That is what the church is there for. And that is really all it is there for. All the socializing, the community, the service, all of it is a response to the basic facts of the cross of Christ, which is still a stumbling block to unbelievers, and the Holy Spirit, Who is the One Who does His work in this mess of a world, to call people out of the world and into the church. When they arrive there, if they do, then they fiknd they dont need all the fancy marketing stuff that is now being done to attract the world. The cross is the attraction, and the Spirit is the One who draws us. May it ever be.
It is not about the church. John Wesley once said that he feared that Methodism would become just another church. Sadly, it has. If this campaign works, it we be because of false advertising. But then if you sell s Shamwow…….