Posted on 06/03/2009 7:26:03 PM PDT by fgoodwin
"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?"
With their pews having thinned dramatically, other mainline Protestant denominations are posing similar questions in like-minded campaigns. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a major mainline denomination, has TV ads spotlighting the church's charitable work and encouraging Lutherans to take pride in and to share their faith with friends. And the Episcopal Church recently launched a website called "I am Episcopalian," where half a million church members have uploaded videos explaining their faith.
These are the kinds of entrepreneurial church-building strategies that are more typical of evangelical megachurches, which have focused on member experiences by offering contemporary music and weeknight small-group meetings. Mainline denominations, meanwhile, have clung to hymns and centuries-old worship styles. "In the competitive spiritual marketplace, mainline churches are trying to reinvent themselves," says Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University.
Some mainline church officials admit to taking a page from the evangelical playbook. And no wonder. Since 1990, the number of Americans identifying themselves as members of mainline denominations, including Presbyterians and the United Church of Christ, has slid from nearly 19 percent of the population to under 13 percent, a loss of 3.5 million people. Over the same period, the number identifying themselves as nondenominational Christians, the evangelical-style tradition of the megachurches, has exploded, from fewer than 200,000 to more than 8 million. "The megachurch folks learned that they have to address people where they are in their daily lives, and that's not in the sanctuary," says the Rev. Larry Hollon, who heads communications for the United Methodists. "The Methodist Church is beginning to recall that that is who we are as well."
With their new branding campaigns, mainline churches are betting that many young Americans are looking for worship alternatives to politically conservative evangelical congregations. A recent study conducted for the United Methodist Church by the Barna Group, a consulting firm specializing in faith-based polling, found that a third of Americans under 35 consider themselves spiritual but are not deeply connected to a church. "These young people have rejected too close a tie between religion and politics," says David Kinnaman, president of the Barna Group. "So the mainline sensibility provides a unique opportunity to speak to them."
Barna's polling also found that young Americans share an increasingly global outlook and a concern for social justice issues like poverty. Ninety-six percent say they want to make a difference in the world. So the United Methodist Church's new ads and website feature Methodist-led service projects around the globe. The Lutheran Church's new branding campaign, called "God's Work, Our Hands," spotlights a church soup kitchen in North Dakota and a mission in Senegal that teaches women business skills.
For all their marketing research and high production value, though, mainliners' branding campaigns face big challenges. 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. "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 in which they operate," says Boston University's Prothero. "That's the problem with mainline Protestantism: It's not different enough from mainstream America."
And bringing any kind of change to centuries-old denominations won't be easy. "The brand and character of the Episcopal Church is being driven by a lot of things that came out of 17th-century England," says Robert Putnam, a Harvard University professor who has studied church growth. "You can't change that with an ad campaign."
Some mainline church officials say their denominations have begun making broader changes, updating worship music and offering small-group environments for congregants. But the branding campaigns, they say, are just as important. "The large churches have been extremely good at initial evangelizing," says Anne Rudig, the director of communications for the Episcopal Church. "But I'm an evangelist, too."
Absolutely! Christ is our cause, our only cause and all else should be a distant second.
If you want to feed the poor, do it to glorify Christ. If you want to house the needy do it to glorify Christ.
Spare us anecdotal sermons about your home life and being a person. Tell us about Christ using the word of God...
American Catholic Church supports La Raza, ACORN and Notre Dame abortionists. The Pope needs to fire a lot of people.
not my methodist church.
“Many Protestant Churches have policies of minding the personal business of church members, couple counseling, individual counseling with ‘on staff’ counselors. Men like me do not want - nor will be tolerate a church getting involved in my personal or family business...”
I disagree that this is bad, no doubt the main focus is teaching from Gods word of Christ but even Christian families have a need from time to time for intervention from elders, piers, or other wise people. So long as the core mission is not counseling having the service itself is invaluable.
Same goes for other community building, Churches should not be a place that you go to on Sunday, maybe for one bible study. The Church should be at the center of your social life, community structure, and support mechanism..
PREACH THE GOSPEL, LIVE THE GOSPEL. PEOPLE WILL FLOCK TO YOUR DOORS.
AMEN.
They’re deceived. The evil one has already seen to that.
My conclusion is that each misses the mark. The mainline churches are dying because they have swapped Jesus Christ for Marx and Rawls and similar degenerates.
The megachurches have swapped the Christian gospel for feel-good socializing and whatever sells.
Jesus Christ said it and Bonhoeffer reiterated, that the number of true Christians in the world would always be a small minority, and they could expect to be persecuted. Not much of a PR "brand" campaign is it?
But it's the truth. And this fetish with church growth and numbers reflects a typically American boomer mentality--- great for creating prosperity, for nurturing faith, not so great.
We may HAVE to go back, if things keep going the way they are. People won’t be able to keep their big institutions going.
Hey, that might work...
I joined a Methodist Church last year. I helped start a theater group there, and we put on a Christian play at Christmas that was very successful and involved the community. We packed the house for all performances after doing months of rehearsal and involving actors from kindergarteners to older adults.
A few of the liberals in the church (who cared nothing about doing theater there before) decided we had to do more issue-oriented plays. One of the woman in the church transcribed a politically correct children’s book word-for-word and called it a play. I pointed out, for starters, that wasn’t going to work on stage. Another woman said we had to do this play because it was about “tolerance.”
I said that “tolerance” was a meaningless concept. The important question was “tolerate what?” After all, we don’t want our kids tolerating genocide. I was told to shut up.
I thought the whole experience was a microcosm of why the Methodist Church is failing. We had created a meaningful religious theater group. It got trampled to death by the self-worship of liberalism.
Churches that are preaching the Word of God, in depth, are growing. Churches that are trying to be politically correct are dying. Go figure!
We go to a Calvary Chapel here in Nevada and our attendance is skyrocketing.
People are flocking to our Catholic Church.
We just had to install sound and a screen in an adjoining room for overflow crowds. Maybe time to build a new Church or get an assistant and offer more Masses. Our priest is already doing four Masses every weekend.
**Barna’s polling also found that young Americans share an increasingly global outlook **
Go ANYWHERE in the world and attend a Catholic Mass. If it’s in Latin the words are the same. If it is a native language, English speakers can still attend.
**Catholic Church endorse Sanctuary for Illegal Aliens **
Source please.
Agree with you all the way. Exactly what our priest does.
Since 1990 our little Southern Baptist church has grown from about 150 on Sundays to 2200 last Easter. On Wednesdays, we have about 200 teenagers show up to hang out at church and receive a Christian message. We have more children under 4 years old than many churches have adults.
Also, the United Methodist Church has gone liberal and embraced homosexual marriage, does not condemn out of wedlock births, and glosses over the gospel in favor of feel good theology. It has become a club and not a church where God and his son are worshiped.
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