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May 28, 2008
Rep'in Your Church With Pride
(Filed under: First Impressions & Beyond)Here's a little story for you.
The other day, I was in my local FedEx-Kinko's, where I spend a lot of time. Bruce was helping me ship some packages, and then an unnamed man came in, sporting a polo with a company logo. It's a big-time company that I do business with regularly, but I had never seen this man before.
He proceeded to hassle Bruce while he was helping me, and then he loudly complained that it would cost $7 to ship his package. This went on for probably 15 minutes as he loudly moved things around, sighed for an audience and complained some more. All in all, he made himself look like an idiot and was a jerk to Bruce from FedEx.
I'll never shop at my local [company where he worked] store. I will go out of my way to do business with them online or in the next town, and I will probably let whoever I deal with at the company know how he acted.
All that to say this: the things you do when you wear your church logo, write from an @yourchurch.org email account or say after letting people know what church you go to matter (OK, all that stuff matters period). That is church marketing, and you're going to fight an uphill battle if you don't represent your church proudly in your community.
Posted by Joshua Cody at May 28, 2008 2:29 PM
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Comments
This is exactly why Christians should never have bumper stickers.
Don't you just love it when the moron in the giant, gas-guzzling SUV cuts you off to move across 4 lanes of freeway traffic? What makes the deal even sweeter is if you look just close enough you'll end up finding the "God is my co-pilot" sticker stuck on the back bumper somewhere.
"Blinker?" What's that?
Beautiful.
Posted by: Nathan A at May 28, 2008 3:18 PM
Super post and appropriate first comment. We are not what we say, we are what we live.
And the world most definitely notices.
Posted by: geoffreybrown at May 28, 2008 6:34 PM
Oh....I thought all those people honking at me were simply reading my bumper sticker:
"Honk if you love Jesus!"
Oops. :-D
Great article and great point. The same could be said when traveling in church vehicles or on church trips. The last thing we need is for a restaurant or business to groan when they see us coming because of a past experience.
Posted by: Greg Simmons at May 29, 2008 5:21 AM
umm... off topic slightly, but I can't resist.
Don't leave tracts for your waiter.
If you want them to come to Jesus, write the sinner's prayer on the back of a 100 dollar bill.
Posted by: kyle at May 29, 2008 7:43 AM
Considering Jesus seemed to get angriest when he was dealing with the hypocrites, this post seems to be a good idea.
Matthew 5:13-16
Posted by: monkidesign at May 30, 2008 2:00 PM
Considering Jesus seemed to get angriest when he was dealing with the hypocrites, this post seems to be a good idea.
Matthew 5:13-16
Posted by: monkidesign at May 30, 2008 2:01 PM
This also applies to the way we represent ourselves, our churches, and our Lord in the flickr lab...
High standard to live up to when we are always lookign for a place to 'let-down' and 'be ourselves'. Unfortunately our selves can be pretty ugly (my self included).
Posted by: scottb at June 3, 2008 1:35 PM
Just took the poll about church shirts... wanted to mention that cafepress may be an option for some. No overhead costs, although the per item costs are higher, there's no minimums, and we only buy for the more highly visible support staff, the rest of us buy our own and many of the congregation do also.
When I wear my shirt it's a reminder to be extra mindful. I wouldn't want to spoil our brand with inappropriate behavior.
Posted by: Shawn at July 9, 2008 7:37 AM
Heh. The Salvation Army has been doing this for a long time. In fact, wearing a uniform is (apparently) so central to our identity as a movement it's mentioned in our 'official' ecclesiological statement.
There's a good summary of the intent of the Salvation Army uniform at http://www.salvationarmy.org.au/SALV/STANDARD/PC_60015.html
I've also critiqued the way we actually use uniform on my blog at http://spiritcry.wordpress.com/2008/06/23/a-few-thoughts-about-uniform-wearing/
Posted by: Cameron at July 10, 2008 5:58 AM
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