As I have mentioned here at sbc IMPACT! on other occasions, I believe that living for awhile outside of our own cultural context can help us at times to see certain things a little more clearly than if we had never had that opportunity. Certainly, as Americans, the dangers of treating the church as if it were a business do not totally escape our attention. Whenever this topic is brought up, as, for example, in Bowden McElroy’s perceptive post of yesterday, there is usually a general assent given to the relevance and legitimacy of the concerns voiced. However, my impression, as someone who, due to my overseas missionary experience, has had the privilege of gaining a bit of an “outsider’s” perspective, is that, in many cases, we are somewhat blinded to the degree the culture that surrounds us influences the way we “do church.”

Several years ago, during our Stateside Assignment, my family hosted a Spanish couple with whom we had become friends for a month-long visit to the States. During this time, we took them to visit several different churches and introduced them to many of our evangelical friends. This couple, who had grown up all their lives in a typically Spanish Catholic-Secular context, and, up to that point, had relatively little exposure to the “evangelical world” at large, were especially interested in the sociological and cultural aspects of what they observed.

Towards the end of their visit, upon asking them about their impressions of the trip, I was intrigued, and also, I must confess, a bit miffed, when they talked about what they considered to be the strange mixture of religion and consumerism they had observed in American church life. Subsequent reflection has led me to ask myself a lot of hard questions.

For example, when travelling around the country this past year of Stateside Assignment, I have been particularly tuned in to the way churches market themselves. Driving down the highway in the Bible-belt South, the multiple and varied churches and church signs along the way seem to me to blend right in with the constant stream of gas stations, fast-food restaurants, and hotels that dot the landscape. On occasions, I get the same sensation I get when I am at the cereal aisle of the local supermarket, overwhelmed by the vast gamut of alternatives available, and the manner in which each one tries to play up its particular “selling points.”

Now, I do not, by any means, want to denigrate the astute use of the media as a tool to proclaim the gospel message. If we are to be good stewards of the gifts and resources God has given us in the task of making disciples of the people in our community, we will need to be good students and practitioners of the fine art of communication. No doubt, some church marketing is done with precisely this end in mind, and does an admirable job of accomplishing its objective.

However, I think it can be healthy, from time to time, to take a step back, and ask ourselves from an “outsider’s” perspective, to the degree we are able, just what it is we are trying to accomplish by the different ways we seek to “market” our church. Does the way we present ourselves in the community—church signs, billboards, newspaper ads, web-pages, flyers, brochures, logos, mottoes, and even the name we choose—really help to communicate the gospel in a sense that brings others closer to Jesus and further along the path of Christian discipleship? Or, is it merely a way of pointing out how our church is better, in this aspect or that one, than the church down the road? On the bottom line, are we really more about advancing the kingdom of God, or more about competing for our “share of the pie”?

The truth is, consumer economics, and free-market competition, are such an ingrained part of everything we are accustomed to as Americans, it can be hard at times, I believe, to separate ourselves from our culture, and see ourselves for what we really are. Some studies have even linked the “success,” from a church growth perspective, of American evangelicalism, to religious plurality, free-market economy, and competition.

If this is something positive from within American culture that God can use, and is using, to see souls won, and disciples made, I certainly don’t want to be guilty of “throwing stones” from the sidelines. Because of this, as far as I am concerned, the jury is still out, in many respects, on church marketing in general. Is the growth that may be attributable to such an approach healthy growth that leads to mature disciples of the Lord Jesus, and that will be able to withstand the winds of cultural change? Maybe so, in some cases. Maybe not, in others. However, if we are to be responsible servants of our King, I am becoming more and more convinced these are questions we should not just blithely brush aside.