Comments on: Church Growth Fallout

By: joel jupp

joel jupp — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:50:04 +0000

“But he’s right.” I like that. Way to keep that authenticity — to look at all the angles. I’m new to this site, but I like what I see. Thanks for all your effort and input.

By: marko

marko — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 09:22:09 +0000

randy and brand1m — thanks for your new comments. you ask some great questions.
focus on programming: true, ys has had a role in creating this problem. i don’t think many of us in the evangelical church, back in the 70s when ys was really getting going, were aware of the problems focusing on programs would create (this was the essential point of my post — the church [and specifically the seeker movement] has had some fantastic innovations in the last 30 years. but there have been some side-effects that we hadn’t predicted or intended). i was always pointing my finger at myself and ys as much as at anyone else.
that said, ys has made a huge shift away from a programs-are-the-answer mindset years and years ago. if you attend any of our events, you would clearly hear this message, that, while programs are important tools, a focus on them in youth ministry is the wrong way to go (as opposed to a focus on relationships). and i think there’s been a shift in our books as well. sure, we still have programming books of various types, because youth workers still need programs. but i really don’t think you’ll find “copy what we do” stuff in the ys line. we’ve been fairly opposed to that line of thinking for a long time.
as to church marketing – yeah, i went back and read my original post and agree i should have defined that a bit more (of course, the post was never intended to be a treatise!). i’m all for churches letting people know they exist, and inviting them. but there’s a truly fine line here, and i believe, some potentially dangerous further side-effects. frankly, i wish we had a different (better) phrase. “church marketing” really does make my muscles tense — it still feels like two words that just DO NOT belong together. and the whole industry that has sprung up around church marketing makes me very, very uncomfortable, and often seems to be driven by the numbers game.
porn sunday: to say i praised this is quite an overstatement. i praised the guys behind it. i think it’s not a completely stupid idea, but it seems pretty odd as an outreach vehicle (churches putting “porn sunday” banners outside, hoping to draw people in). my post was basically mocking the idea (blogs are great for sideline potshots).
randy, i think i addressed your observation, but in case i didn’t: i don’t have a problem with acknowledging that ys markets stuff. we’re a business. but at the same time, one of our organizational “guiding principles” is that we will tell the truth in everything we do (which includes our marketing stuff).

By: Randy

Randy — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 06:30:49 +0000

Mark…ditto…this isn’t a bash of you or YS products. I’ll continue to buy and use them.
It just seemed odd that an entity that existed by and large through marketing (you have to, your a sales orgainzation) was attacking marketing.
If I offended I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to “attack” you or YS, just point out the irony.

By: brand1m

brand1m — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 00:19:02 +0000

– and we hear from the man himself. ;)
First mark, in fairness I have to say that I leaned pretty heavy on Wild Truths, HELP! and a host of other YS non-marko products when I was starting out in jr. high ministry. In my opinion, they were/are the best out there (sans a few of the older ones). If nothing else, they were always professional, which is more than I can say for some other resource producers.
I don’t want to rehash everything but I would like to use 2 examples. Surely, you can see the irony in some of your points; you say don’t focus on programming, yet that is what YS is for the most part. I think I understand what you mean, but I have just known too many knuckleheads that buy a book thinking that now they will have a model for their ministry, or, know how to “do” it. This isn’t YS’s or any other resource company’s fault, its the knucklehead’s fault. But the producers, in my opinion, are a part of the problem.
As for the church marketing (since that is the only part really relevant to this site) it comes down to your definition. If you are talking about church marketing to sell products or something, then yes, I think that is a problem. For me though, I see church marketing as simply another form of outreach. We have a great message to share with the world, and if it takes me creating a newspaper campaign to get them to consider it, then I’m all game.
Would it be possible to get you to clarify on what you mean by “church marketing” sometime? Also, it seems pretty ironic that you praise the XXX church guys and “PornSunday” since that is pretty much a marketing gimic, if you ask me. How do you differentiate that?
My tone may not have been proper, and if so, please forgive me. That will happen to you when you are up late working on ad campaigns for diapers. :(

By: marko

marko — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 22:21:48 +0000

wow — hadn’t checked back in here for a couple days. didn’t know there was such a ys distaste here.
a few comments:
randy/brand1m/others: first, i’m honored, randy, that you think i have some of yaconelli’s voice. that’s a fantastic compliment to me. please know, if you never use another ys product in your life, we’ll be ok. we love to serve youth workers in churches — that is truly our motivation (not making cash, as you seem to presume). yes, we are a business (not a church, as patrick identifies). and the beauty of that is that if our training and resources are helpful to people; if they’re not meeting needs for real youth workers, then we go out of business. we don’t have donors to call to bail our butts out of bad decisions or crappy products.
of course we have marketing. i don’t think marketing is bad, in and of itself (for a business). we have to let people know what they have to choose from. but if a youth worker is better helped by stuff from another publisher, or stuff she writes, or stuff you give him — more power to ‘em.
ys isn’t out to build an empire (and we don’t franchise — i’m not sure where you get that idea). we’re really just a little group of youth workers who are driven, every day, by making stuff to help other youth workers.
oh, and i can only think of a couple times in recent years that we’ve repackaged or recovered books. even then, it’s been with a substantial update and rewrite, because we thought there was something worth revising.

By: Randy

Randy — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 14:28:04 +0000

the problem isn’t what he said per se, but the pot calling the kettle black.
Mark and YS routinely bash churches for “marketing and selling out the church and franchising.”
You can read all about it in their books they market to us on how our youth groups/churches need to look like them.

By: RobyMD

RobyMD — Sun, 09 Oct 2005 09:43:10 +0000

I don’t see what the problem is with what he said. I happen to have a business\ministry (christian clothing), and I’ve recently started youth work at my church.
In my case sales can directly relate to people affected. If I didn’t worry about how many sales we have, it also means I’m not worried about how many people are getting the message which we have set out to share. But if I said I’m concerned with commercialization of the church and Christ that doesn’t mean I’m a hypocrite but I am aware of a potential problem and I have to work even harder to make sure I’m not making the problem bigger.

By: brand1m

brand1m — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 22:04:19 +0000

There’s nothing wrong with a business making a buck, parachurch or otherwise.
I guess I would just equate it to McDonald’s telling us that we are too fat and need to lose weight. Although, they might be right, they are contributing to the problem too.

By: patrick

patrick — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 14:34:57 +0000

where’s the problem with that? it’s a business that happens to be a ministry (or vise versa). businesses need to be run like a business, regardless of whether or not they’re a ministry. as such, ministry-businesses shouldn’t be lumped in with “the church” in that regard (there’s a reason they’re called “parachurch”). either that, or his blog should have been about what is bad for ministry-businesses.

By: brand1m

brand1m — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 14:00:39 +0000

I knew he was talking about the church, I just found it humorous that what he is telling us is bad for the church is pretty much how he makes a living.