Thursday, December 4, 2008

Church of Starbucks

Ok, so I'm not dead. I just haven't posted in a really long time. I've come across a blog called Beyond Relevance, a website devoted to helping churches figure out culture. Many churches try new things, often to discover that what they're doing was "in" ten years ago. For example, using a new font for bulletins and anouncements, like Papyrus - the most overused font on the face of the earth. Anyway, Beyond has put together a little video to make their point. What if Starbucks marketed itself like a church (i.e. a 'seeker friendly' evee-free church)

I'm not a big fan of church marketing to begin with, at least the concept in general. If by 'church marketing' you mean, we're going to try to make our letterheads match and have a website that doesn't look like it was made with Windows 3.0 and a crayon, fine. If you mean you are trying to figure out how the wider, essentially non-Christian-but-heard-enough-Christian-jargon-to-be-innoculated culture sees the church, fine. If you mean you are trying the latest fad to get attendance to go up, forget it, they'll see right through you like a clear, see-through thingy.