As someone who is part of a new, forming, church community in Western, MI, I couldn't help but highlight, underline, and circle the following from
The Next Evangelicalism:"A few years ago I was told about a church plant in a suburban community. The church had been given a fairly healthy sum to aid in its church plant. The church proceeded to use a substantial portion of those funds to pay a graphic designer to create a logo for the church. In short, a third of the church planting budget went toward a marketing effort....I wonder if Jesus would spend a third of a church planting grant to make a logo that would give the appearance of a successful church, or would those fund have been better used by serving community?"Welcome to the world of church marketing :) In many ways no different than our corporate world;
brand it, advertise it, get people to buy it, get people to buy it again!In all honesty I struggle with this all of the time. I never want the church (or the gospel) to become a thing that we sell, yet I value the contributions of many of the artists within our church community that design pieces that inspire and communicate.
Is there an appropriate level by which a church can/should communicate what is going on? When does a church step across the line from sharing/communicating the story, to selling a product?
