A Philosophy that Influenced a Generation

Marketing 101

I first heard about Unchurched Harry and Mary way back in the late 80’s when I was attending seminary in Chicago and visiting Willow Creek every chance I had.

 

Lee Strobel helped the American church learn how to be more seeker-sensitive.  The Willow-inspired practice of that day was to survey your community door-to-door so that your church leadership could learn first hand what were truly the community’s spiritual needs and roadblocks.  Armed with this data, the challenge was then to design church services accordingly.

 

In reality, the principle of Unchurched Harry and Mary was nothing more than Marketing 101…the American church needed to learn how to market its self more effectively.  The result was that many churches indeed became more culturally relevant…at least to the culture of the 1990’s.

 

Something happened over the last twenty years.  I don’t know how, I don’t know when, but somewhere along the timeline of the past two decades, many of our churches seem to have stopped asking Harry and Mary about their lifestyle, needs and spiritual hang-ups.  The church culture has become one of model-chasing…always looking for the next latest-and-greatest techniques for “doing church”.  Our American Church culture has, in many cases, shifted from “being the Church” to “doing church” - any way that appears to be successful.  So when Plexiglas podiums were the “hot thing” for doing church, it seemed that every church had to have a Plexiglas podium…at least until they got tired of wiping finger prints off every Sunday.  When big screens became the hot new way to “do church”, every church had to have one - or two, or three.  I could lay out a long list of copy-cat techniques, but I think you get the point…Unchurched Harry and Mary now have dozens of cookie-cutter churches to choose from…yet every poll tells us that people today want more than sugar-sprinkled spiritual cookies.  In fact, a 2004 Barna Survey concluded:

 

Since 1991, the adult population in the United States has grown by 15%. During that same period the number of adults who do not attend church has nearly doubled, rising from 39 million to 75 million – a 92% increase!  (view full summary)

 

Clearly, The way we are “doing church” is not working. 

 

What’s Your Marketing Niche?

Years ago I was on a business trip when I drove past a failed hamburger restaurant.  I couldn’t help but notice the burger-joint’s big sign along the road.  It consisted of a large golden crown.  Below the crown was the name of the restaurant: “Burger Queen”.  This is an example of poor niche marketing.  Yet, across North America we have thousands of churches trying to be “Burger Creeks” and “Burger Backs”.  How about Granger-burgers?  OK…enough with the junk food metaphors.

 

The basic premise behind the principle of Unchurched Harry and Mary was that through the use of surveys, unique community distinctives would be discovered.  The result would be that how one church designed its ministry in one community would likely be very different from how another church, in another community, designed its ministry.  In marketing terms, you must first know your market, and then devise a market niche.  Your church’s niche is what makes your ministry very different and uniquely attractive from all the other ministries in your community.

 

In theological and spiritual terms, pastoral leaders should seek from God His will regarding the ministry calling of any particular congregation.  I doubt He calls every church to “do church” in virtually the same way, using the same popular techniques.  One of Christ’s greatest attributes is His ability to be creative…through Him all things were created.  So if we are the body of Christ, His representatives within this world, don’t you think that some of that creativity should have rubbed off by now? 

 

What Would the Survey Look Like Today?

If your ministry conducted the Harry and Mary survey today, I think you would find that the survey results have changed significantly from the results that were typical twenty years ago.  Among the differences that churches must now seriously consider, is the cultural impact of the internet.  Twenty years ago, the Harry and Mary surveys could not consider internet influences…because the internet did not exist.  Today, there is no greater cultural influence in North America than the internet.  As much as your church may want to ignore this fact, and continue to chase after antiquated ministry models that were designed based upon Harry and Marry studies of 20+ years ago, professional surveys conducted this year should cause us to cast off our “contemporary” traditions.  Let’s take a look at what the Harry and Mary of 2005 are up to these days and compare their activities with those of the so-called “contemporary” church.

 

Relationships Evolve Differently

For all the talk that comes out of many of our churches today, telling us that relationships are central to our spiritual development, this “value” is not typically modeled by the leadership through their highly programmed and performed Sunday services.  In fact, there is nothing relational at all about the way we “do church” today.  Twenty years ago, we learned that Unchurched Harry and Mary did not like being noticed….visitor anonymity was considered a positive value.  Today, in 2005, Unchurched Harry and Mary will not likely step foot inside your church walls until a relationship of trust has already been established.  The evolution of relationships today often begins online, and moves to face-to-face interactions once relational trust has been nurtured.  The idea of attracting unchurched people into your service is now culturally obsolete.  The front door to your ministry is no longer the Seeker-Sensitive service.  The front door to your ministry is your personal computer.  Meet and greet people online.  Build relationships online.  Allow people to get to know you…the real you…not your institutional organization with its many programs.  Build an online community where Seekers and Christians can interact and relate.  After all, the internet today is all about relationships.

 

Look at the results of this Pew Internet & American Life Study and notice what the #1 purpose for using the internet is today:  (view full report)

 

 

These results are already four years old.  All available information suggests that if the study were conducted today, Relationships would score at least ten points higher.  The internet of 2005 and beyond is predominately a venue for relational bridge-building.  Interpersonal relationships now exist in reality and virtually at the same time.  If your ministry is at all serious about reaching out to your greater community relationally for Christ, you had better come to grips with the fact that 65-75% of young adults today build relationships online…often long before they are willing to meet one-another face-to-face.  Does your ministry have an online relationship strategy?  I have no doubt what-so-ever that if the Apostle Paul were ministering today, he would have an incredible online ministry program.

 

The Church Must Be a Family, Not Target Families

Over the past two decades, the typical church has focused heavily upon being family-friendly.  While this is not inherently bad, the Unchurched Harry and Mary of 2005/2006 is more likely to be statistical singles, without children, than was true of the Unchurched in 1990 and before.  The 2000 census, the Barna Report and the Pew Internet and American Life studies clearly demonstrate that young adults are staying single longer.  George Barna demonstrated that singles make up a disproportionate percentage of the unchurched population.

 

Corresponding to their younger age, the survey also found that unchurched people are more likely than other to be single and to never have been married. Whereas one-quarter of American adults (26%) are single-never-married, nearly two-fifths of the unchurched fit that definition (37%).

 

Complicating the matter further, many of our ministries today either have no ministry or social programs for singles, or relegate single’s ministry to the lowest level of ministerial importance, signified by limited budgets and staff.  According to Kris Swiatocho of The Singles Network, literally 50% of our nation’s population is currently single, yet most churches continue to neglect today’s Unchurched Harry and Mary.  (view video)

 

Today’s Unchurched single Harry and single Mary are more distant and allusive than ever.  They do not want to participate in church programs:

Barna noted that to unchurched people embracing church life is both counter-cultural and counter-intuitive.  Reaching out to unchurched people is difficult for born again Christians because the two groups have such different viewpoints and lifestyles. Born again adults are more excited about a church’s strengths and more forgiving of its weaknesses, more disposed to spiritual growth, and less skeptical of theological and biblical claims. They neither see nor understand the obstacles that impede the unchurched. Addressing the reticence of the unchurched takes more than prayer and hard work: it requires a lot of deep reflection to see the world and the local church from a completely different angle….The rapidly swelling numbers of unchurched people may be forcing existing churches to reinvent their core spiritual practices while holding tightly to their core spiritual beliefs. It will take radically new settings and experiences to effectively introduce unchurched individuals to biblical principles and practices.

One “radical new setting and experience” that I continually stress to churches, yet most churches choose to ignore, is an effective internet ministry that is relationally-based.  If the majority of unchurched world will resist coming to your church, then don’t you think it’s time that your church goes to them?

Presentation is Passé

In the 1980’s and 1990’s, the cultural surveys stressed the importance of “quality” and “presentation” within the church service.  Image was everything to the Boomer generation.  Today, however, presentation holds very little spiritual value to the Unchurched Harry and Mary of 2005, particularly if there is even a hint of performance or if the service lacks a sense of human authenticity.  Today’s Unchurched Harry and Mary are media savvy.  To them, “presentation” feels like spiritual fakery.  They know marketing and packaging when they see it.  They expect such spam on television.  But just as they will not abide spam on the internet…spiritual spam is totally unacceptable.   While quality presentation may be important in a sales meeting…a church is not about sales, but salvation.  If you must present anything to the congregation, present Christ through the authentic spiritual lives of your people, displayed through their dynamic worship, and expressed through their personal stories and missional ministry.  What the Christian community does in the name of Christ…love in action…is a much more effective communication tool to the Unchurched Harry and Mary of 2005, than what the church “presents”. 

Conclusion

The pendulum of values swings from generation to generation.  While some established values may carry over to succeeding generations, as a general rule, the emerging generation always discover aspects of the previous generation’s value-set that they will reject.  And, let’s be honest, they may have good reason to reject those established values. 

 

In this article, I have been able to touch on only a few pendulum-swings.  If we recognize, as Barna has demonstrated, and as today’s generation innately knows, that the current ways of “doing church” are a miserable failure that have resulted in a 92% increase in Unchurched Harry’s and Mary’s, then we must agree that letting the pendulum swing in the direction of postmodern ministry methodology can only be an improvement.  As the old saying goes: “If you keep doing what you’ve always done you will get what you’ve always got”.  It’s time that the church begins to learn how to build relationships in an internet culture.  It’s time that the church started being a family, rather than targeting families.  And it is time that the church stopped putting on a show, and started putting on the full armor of Christ.