I am the pastor of a small Lutheran congregation. As such, we don't have some things that big Lutheran congregations have like lighted signs and enough money to blow on anything we please...

Image: 0228082245 by rbatina at Flickr

But we do have an answering machine. It's sort of old. But we have one.

As a campus minister, the summer is my recruitment time. I am going through all of the churches in Florida and calling them to ask if they know of any students coming to FSU (or really any of the Florida-Georgia state schools).

Today I called 15 Lutheran churches in Florida using the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod congregation finder. First of all, on page one of my results pages that I printed off there are 28 churches. Guess how many have websites? 16.

That means that out of 28 Lutheran churches 16 have websites and 12 don't.

In addition to that, as I went through my 15 churches to call I found that 2 of them did not have answering machines. ANSWERING MACHINES! According to Wikipedia, that's a technological innovation from 1935. We hadn't even printed "The Lutheran Hymnal: 1941 Edition" by that point.

I also found that 2 more of those churches had insane voice mail procedures to get through to talk to a human or to leave a message. It was like calling BestBuy. Dial 1 for the pastor, dial the middle 4 digits of your Social Security number if you really want to talk to the pastor, otherwise just hang up and call the Baptist church down the street - they answer their phone.

It could be that I was using an outdated number because that is the number that the LCMS has published. I hope that's the case.

If you're the pastor of a church without an answering machine, you're on my "righteous indignation list". Arggghhh!!! And we wonder why people aren't coming to Lutheran churches!!!

Two of Seth Godin's recent posts talked about "4 words" that should be at the heart of every effective marketing campaign. "Make big promises; overdeliver" and "Connect like minded people"

Image: Connect4 by Banalities at Flickr


Technically, the Church should be pretty good at marketing if this is what is at the heart of marketing. Maybe it really is pretty good after all when it comes to marketing the product - the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Let's dissect:
"Make big promises" - Ok, I don't think you can get a much bigger promise than an afterlife that is already paid for and a role in changing the world today.

"Overdeliver" - I think we see the antithesis of this in the prosperity or "health and wealth" Gospel of many televangelists. For them the "big promise" of life in Christ just isn't big enough. Not only do they want heaven and a role to play in the Church, but they would like to add a BMW and a 5 bedroom house onto that.

"Connect like-minded people" - Christianity may take an interesting approach to this since it seeks to create like-minded people that live connectedly. At least that is what Jesus' disciples seemed to be (the 12 included a tax-collector who would have been considered a traitor, a zealot who would have been something like an uber-religious violent fanatic, a couple of fishermen, and some others). The early Church of Acts also seems to take different sorts of people (Jews, Gentiles, Pharisees, ex-Pharisees, etc) and establish bonds between them. However, when churches get into only connecting with one demographic (college students, yuppies, rich folks, poor folks) they seem to go downhill.

How do you think the Church is doing in "Making big promises, overdelivering, and connecting like-minded people (or creating like-minded people via connection)?"

When Jesus said "On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” in John 7 (oddly one of this week's Bible readings in liturgical churches), I don't think He meant this.

Image: Balance from Spiritual Water Inc.

According to a Denver Post article that Dan from Prayeramedic sent me, you may be seeing "Balance" Spiritual Water showing up at your local grocery store right next to the freaky looking Santaria candles in the Hispanic foods aisle.

There are 11 kinds of "Spiritual Water" that you can purchase, each with a picture of a religious figure (Jesus or Mary), except for the odd omission of "Freedom" water which contains no image (that must be for those anti "graven image" folks).

For example, you can purchase "Balance" water with a picture of Jesus in a "Sacred Heart" pose with the Lord's Prayer on the back or "Focus" water with the Virgin Mary appearing to ascend on the front the Hail Mary on the back, or a personal favorite - the "Formula J" (for Jesus, you heathen) with the "Oh My Jesus" prayer on the back. As I mentioned before, the "Freedom" water has no image, but includes the "Make Me An Instrument of Your Peace" prayer from mystic Francis of Assisi.

Noticeably absent is the "Mo' Spirit, Mo' Money" water with a prayer from prosperity Gospel guru, Joel Osteen.

I've seen this kind of thing before. I've even used Peter Popoff's "Miracle Water" (he has switched to Miracle Manna now) as a sermon illustration. Hopefully needless to say, it disappoints me just as much as the pseudo-spiritual mumbo-jumbo of Rome disappointed Martin Luther when he visited.

However, being chronically iconoclastic, I am tempted to wonder what kinds of products the church could put out that would actually say something about *real* Christian thought. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod now has its own brand of coffee, "Cafe Sola". Could we open up our market for Cafe Sola to Starbucks around the world and ask only that people knew that this coffee was produced by Lutherans helping poor people with a fair trade coffee?

Whatever we did, I'm sure it would be better than this crap. Besides, what's a clearer picture of the Lutheran idea of sacraments as being a physical element (like water) being infused with the Word (in this case, not Word but coffee grounds)?

I just posted the readings for Pentecost Sunday. I included the alternate readings as well.

Image: Tongues of fire Acts 2:3 by Akuman1 at Flickr

I do this partially to familiarize myself with speaking the words of the reading outloud, but I hope that you get something out of it. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

First Reading - Acts 2:1-21
Alternate First Reading - Numbers 11:24-30
Psalm - Psalm 104:24-34
Second Reading - I Corinthians 12:3-13
Alternate Second Reading - Acts 2:1-21
Gospel - John 20:19-23
Alternate Gospel Reading - John 7:37-39

Update: There's a little goof in the order because I had to repost the Gospel reading...which now shows up first.

Earlier today in Tallahassee there was a Conference for Excellence in Nonprofit Management & Leadership. I wasn't invited.

Image: RSVP/ASAP by hollyjlynn at Flickr

Don't get me wrong, I probably wouldn't have gone if I had been invited. The topics didn't look all that appealing to me: "Management training, executive leadership and grant writing were topics that are being covered in six-hour [sic] sessions".

But it got me to thinking, churches are technically covered under the same laws as other non-profit organizations like your local Red Cross, Make A Wish, Ronald McDonald House, etc. Yet we're not invited to a lot of the same parties.

Possible reasons:
*Non-profits want "church and non-profit" separation like the state wants separation. They don't want to look like they're pandering.
*The major output of a church is a message. All non-profits are selling a message, but their messages often don't transcend their activities. The message of a church transcends its activity.
*Churches simply aren't helping their communities that much anymore. We've gotten out of the hospital, orphanage, and many other games that we used to be players in.

Can you think of any others?

For those of you who know my wildly variant and extremely eclectic taste in music, you know that the musical chaos of Tom Waits is something that I enjoy from time to time. I'm not saying you're going to like Tom. You probably won't. That's either because you're a heathen or I'm a heathen.

Image: Briar Ross - a kiwi jazz vocalist

But in reading Rolling Stone this morning I found that Tom put together a mock press conference which explained that his new American tour was following the pattern of the constellation Hydra, because after all, "where do we look when we're lost?" and "how did the Magi find the Christ child?" And then he went into an explanation of the acronym PEHDSTKJMBA...

Knowing Tom's sense of humor, he's probably poking a little fun at a recent trend towards self promotion in the music industry. One of the effects of the information age and the internet as it applies to the music industry is that it was created more of a one-on-one relationship with bands. Even if it's a phony hope, people feel a greater amount of connectivity with their favorite band because they can go to their website, shoot them an email, etc.

This feeling of closeness has allowed for the "self publishing" world of music to become big business. Self-publishing, which used to be limited to garage bands making demos to shop to big record labels, is now how folks like Jimmy Buffett, Madonna, Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, and Nine Inch Nails are actually choosing to get their music out. Nine Inch Nails today actually released a new album called "The Slip" for free to fans over the internet (and it's been bogged down every time I've went to the website, so that means people are picking it up). In the world of written communication, self-publishing seems to be gaining similar credibility according to what I heard from Margaret Feinberg (a Christian authoress extrodinaire) at a conference I attended last week (she talked about some of this too).

What, you might be asking, does all of this have to do with Christianity?

I remember a year or two in the 1990's when I did "street promotions" for a few record labels in exchange for free CD's. Back then the name of your label really mattered because it told people that you were accepted by someone with standards. Even the "underground" music that I was listening to often had a big label name behind it.

Similarly, people are used to looking for the big names in Christianity, even if they want something with an "underground feel." I just read an article about how staunch Calvinism (a big name "label") is having a revival in newer churches because it has a pre-figured identity that people can trust. You can also see this in people who are searching for a newer and hipper church, but come to it with already preconceived notions of what they want their brand to provide (i.e. free coffee, Jesus-centered worship, communion every weekend, robes and vestments, etc).

If different elements of culture all track along the same road at slightly different times, this means that the self-publishing world of music will mean something for the brand name churches (Lutheranism, Calivinism, Roman Catholicism, Methodism, etc) and for non-branded non-denominational and emerging type churches.

I don't think the brand names/mainline churches are going to disappear, but I do think that they and their artists or churches (depending on which you're talking about) are going to have to start operating differently with each other.

It used to be that a local church could define its identity by giving you its label - i.e. University *Lutheran* Church. Today the "Lutheran" in that sentence doesn't offer identity, but I think it does offer credibility. If you're a mainline church you're still credible in the eyes of many, and credibility is a key component of reaching out to culture today because of its ties to authenticity. However, where many mainline churches are failing is in believing that their denomination gives them identity. If your identity is wrapped up in your national denominational body, you are going to utterly fail.

Instead, your identity needs to be self-forged and self-promoted. I have seen this done in many conservative confessional circles with churches producing their own VBS materials and loads of junk about "the one year historic lectionary" (a series of readings which is older than the current three year one that is used in most churches, and therefore for some people seems to be defacto more holy). Unfortunately, much of the self-production that I've seen from these churches has been normally pretty shoddy.

For an example of success in self-promotion, I would look to Rob Bell and his NOOMA series. Pretty much everyone in the world knows what a NOOMA is or has at least seen the baby blue packaging somewhere. That came from one church seeking to promote itself (and therefore its message) to a widening and widening audience. Despite the times when I wrestle with Bell's interpretive moves, his example of getting the message of the church out.

For those in mainline churches, the additional bonus to self-promotion is that it may actually help your brothers and sisters out because you can lend your message's credibility to your brother and sister churches. Just imagine how many people would be flocking to Lutheran churches around the country if it came out that Rob Bell was a Lutheran (and then imagine the mass exodus from Lutheran churches when the two messages and styles didn't match up).

This time of self promotion, which could be relatively short-lived or could go on forever, mimics the Gutenberg phenomenon of the 1500's. We have a chance to use the printing press again. Will we?

Tonight I went to an "emerging" church with "emerging" in its name (how very un-emerging) with my guitar guy from University Lutheran here in Tallahassee. The name of the place was "Element 3: An Emerging Church In Tallahassee." After sitting through their worship service, I picked up some good ideas, but in general - I'm glad I'm a Lutheran.

Image: Old Lutheran

I realize that on this blog I can often be a little down on my own people, the Lutherans, but it is experiences like these that make me say, "wow...I sure I am glad I'm a Lutheran."

This trip also gave me an experience that I don't get that often, that of going to a church as an anonymous visitor. I figured that it was an experience worth reflecting on.

Entrance: Adam and I walked in from the parking lot to the entrance which was manned by several people with two handouts - one bulletin and one flyer about the income tax economic stimulus program (I'll explain that later). They said "hi" to us, but not much beyond that. I didn't really know where to go.

There was a coffee bar that I had read on their website was free before worship. I felt kind of bad stealing coffee poured for me by a barista without the option of at least giving a donation. The line was also utterly confusing. Adam and I decided against the free lattes.

Like good Lutherans, we found a spot in about the middle of the room. The front of the room was populated by a stage, then small cocktail tables and chairs, and then theater style seating. We sat in the 2nd row of the theater seating. On the screen there was a countdown to when worship would begin, which I thought was nice, but didn't really seem to get people in their seats any faster.

Beginning of worship: The band, which was phenomenal, played a couple of opening worship songs of the usual "glory glory glory" caliber. They had a very cool moving background thing going on for the lyrics of the songs and the visual appearance was very rock star. Some other guy, one of the pastors at this place, got up and made a few announcements in a very bad, very hokey, emcee sort of fashion. The band then played a few more songs and then we moved into a Baptism.

Baptism: Some young Filipina girl had decided to give her life to Jesus after explaining some story about being involved in an abusive relationship with a boyfriend and how that led her to start praying again. The Baptism was very heavy on the idea that this was "an outward sign of an inner reality", and was done by full immersion. The band played another song directly afterwards.

Message: This church was doing a sermon series on Song of Solomon which ended up being a verse by verse trip through chapter 5 of Song of Solomon focusing pretty much entirely on relationships. The preacher was the head pastor who looked ultra hip in a tshirt that said "coffee" on it and jeans with a shaved head that made him sort of look like Woody Harrelson after chemo treatments. Just as I was writing a note to Adam to the effect of "where the blankity blank is Jesus?!?!" Jesus was mentioned at the end, but He was really more of a good example for us to follow in forgiving other people - not so much the one who died for your sins (although that was implied).

Ending Set: The band played a few more songs. As I said before, they were pretty good. It was only in the last song, however, tha the gathered people were really encouraged to sing the words and not just listen to the uber cool band and soak in their Fall Out Boy fashion statements.

Final video: The last thing in the worship service was a video of the head pastor talking about how people could donate their $300-$1200 economic stimulus check from the IRS to help the church purchase a new facility because they were being kicked out of their current location. I thought using the economic stimulus package to encourage at least a one time donation was a genius idea.

The end: A prayer was said by the head pastor who sort of blessed us for our week to come. Adam and I high-tailed it out of there without talking to pretty much anyone. The head pastor guy was nowhere to be found. Everyone else seemed to be taking off in the same way that Adam and I were.

Good ideas: Adam and I had gone to this church partly out of curiosity and partly to see if we could pick up any good ideas from another worship service. We didn't really find that much that would work for our setting of a smaller, acoustic guitar led, liturgical service. I did like the idea of the free coffee, but who doesn't like the idea of free coffee? I also liked that there were both sermon notes and a Bible study on the bulletin to keep you thinking about the message throughout the week. And I liked their cool moving powerpoint backgrounds which Adam told me was likely from a program called MediaShout. They were also really good at graphic arts design and the service exuded a sort of cool cultural savviness that I appreciated.

The lack of Jesus: It seemed like when Jesus was mentioned, it was in a more lip-service kind of fashion than being the center of the worship experience. To a Lutheran, this is a big no-no, as I would hope it would be in many churches.

I wonder: I wonder what their "backdoor" looks like (that's churchy terminology for how many people get lost in the shuffle and leave the church). Given some of the elements that I saw in the service tonight, I would guess that this church has a pretty high turnover rate. They are probably able to remain alive through a good core group, however, and having enough occasional visitors like Adam and I.

Overall: I would give Element 3 a B- or a C+. It was pretty much the usual evangelical service that I would expect out of many a church. It was average except for a few shining examples, like the production effort and attention given to media. I did come out of the experience thanking God that He allowed me to grow up in and be the pastor of a Lutheran church wherein some of the problems I experienced at this church are severely guarded against. I can be down on Lutherans sometimes, but that's generally because they're closer to me and it's easy to pick on what you're familiar with and really love. This service showed me some of the stuff that I would miss if the Lutherans stopped existing. May that never be the case.