Absolutely right.

The assumption on the part of churches that use such language seems to be that every believer or non-believer who sits at home on Sunday must have been offended, abused or rejected by "one of those churches".

In fact, it is much more likely that that person has issues with acknowledging his or her sin. For a church to invite such a person in with that kind of language only enables that person to continue in self deception.

The United Methodist Church in their recent ad campaign, and especially the United Church of Christ try to paint every other church as bigoted and closed minded.

I don't believe the UMC wants to be insulting in it. I think they are just trying to reach out to people who have prejudices about what church people are like, but they add to the stereotype.

I have never been into church competition. I had people come to the church where I used to preach and ask about membership simply because they were bothered by a dispute at the other church down the road. I would talk them into returning and patching up their relationships. My job is not to swap Christians, it is to glorify God. Sometimes that means recognizing that people don't have to come to the same building I do to belong and serve.

Dave,
As one who knows of your ministry and prays for you often...thanks for practicing what you preach. Your words bring us closer to that which Jesus prayed for...that we might be brought together in complete unity.

thanks,
jt

I find this an intriguing post - while I agree that church marketing should never use a negative campaign against other congregations, I do think that a church can and should use its own particular God-given vision and priorities to shape its literature and outreach. Most individual churches do have some distinctives which can properly be used to attract people through their doors. Sometimes it is necessary to say you are different (if it is true!), perhaps to hightlight those particular values or sometimes simply to challenge preconceptions or misconceptions of church in the unchurched mind.

I suppose the call here is for pinpointing those particular values with sensitivity and care which I completely agree with. However, I would be wary of always labelling this as some sort of implied judgement on other churches.

For years I have remained somewhat stubborn on the notion that the majority of churches across America (and I can't really speak for those outside the U.S. because I am not all that familiar with them) have been missing the best "marketing" lure we have - Jesus!

It sounds so simple that it gets lost amid the waves of banner ads, flashy websites, large signs with catchy slogans, direct-mail pieces, radio ads and more... If you read Acts 2:42-47 (the best "church marketing plan" ever devised in my opinion) you get a very clear picture of what it is that actually drew people INTO the church... it was NOT the flashy preaching or the well-performed music or the slick marketing campaign... it was Jesus Christ - his presence and his power made manifest in miraculous and tangible ways.

I don't know why we (churches) are so afraid to actually give people true, life-changing encounters with Christ and let THAT be the lure... perhaps we actually do believe we are smarter than God or that He needs our help in order to get people into our churches -- I know that all the money in the world, directed toward the most creative advertising, might get someone to purchase a box of cereal - but if that cereal is terrible or has no substance, word of mouth will kill all future sales...

I disagree and to be honest a few months ago I would have agreed with the writer. I disagree with negative campaigning, but over the past few months I have been actively commenting and trying to carry on conversations on many websites including digg.com, several gamer sites(although I'm not a gamer) and several general tech websites. What I have found is that Christianity has done an incredible amount of damage to the very people that it is trying to reach. The world (at least the group of people that I have been talking with - about 20 individuals and about 75 more who haven't been commenting back but apparently have been reading) feels that we are judgmental and have no concern for them or their lives. Now this conversation has been had so many times and churches, pastors, and denominations seem to struggle with the fact that the world doesn't like us and they think we are fools. If it takes us saying and hopefully being different then we must without compromising our theology. Paul said he was all things to all people (1 Corinthians 9:22). It seems most of the time that churches that are saying they are different are hoping that they will be different so as to reach further.

These people that I am speaking with hate Christianity to the point that I feel that I have to apologize most times and to be honest in many of their situations I would agree with their assessment. They see a lot of religion but not a lot of faith and love. I then try to speak honestly and try to be completely straight forward. Watering down our theology is not the answer but saying we have all of the answers is not helpful either.

Just being out there and loving people and apologizing sometimes, and being concerned about their needs and desiring to talk with them is what is needed and if a church has to say “Please come because we are different” then do that as well. There are a lot of people that Christianity (not Christ – but Christianity) has hurt and ignoring that will only push them further away.

I think that marketing a church as different and unique has lost its effectiveness, which means many churches will continue to use this approach for the next 15 years. People are less likely to be intrigued and impressed by the unchurchiness of churches; even the most unchurched of the population is at least vaguely familiar with the concept of a contemporary church.

Dave makes a great point. We ought to be able to talk up our church without talking down the others. Besides, this mentality is only about a half-step away from "we're right and everyone else is wrong" -- and that attitude certainly isn't attractive to moderately religious church shoppers.

I am a member North Point Community Church and to my knowledge we have never advertised except for word of mouth.

I would take you up on the idea that marketing your church as "different" is targeted to Christians. At least for our church we have the idea that we are trying to reach out to the lost, and not to people at the church down the road. As a matter of fact, we are opening up a new campus 20 miles north of us and a Chritian radio station wanted us to advertise what we were doing, and we turned them down. Why? Because that is not the market we are trying to reach. If we are to reach the lost, why would anyone advertise to those that have been found?

I agree that the tagline "a different kind of church" can be viewed as an attack against a neighboring church, and I do (or at least should) have a problem with that. From another perspective though, I think the intention behind the tagline may be that we are different from the stereotypical church you are used to. In other words, we're not slamming another arm of the body of Christ, we're distinguishing ourselves from the generally-false stereotype in the mind of the unchurched person. Is that wrong, too? Maybe it is; I'm not sure. Either way, Dave's concern is justified and should be heeded.

Only in the church are we so concerned about maintaining perceived homogeneity that to say you're different is imply others are bad. I'm different than my wife, that doesn't make her bad. Different is different. Not necessarily better. Not necessarily worse.

To embrace our sameness as a church, is to deny our continued ineptitude at reaching people for Christ. Bravo for churches who adopt different methods for reaching people with The Message.

There is nothing wrong with marketing your ministries to the public but not at the expense of other churches. Regardless of the denomination, what we teach as christians should point back to Jesus.

The bottom line, if HE (Jesus) is lifted up on the earth he will draw all men unto him.

I think competition between Churches is just wrong. We should not be competing against each other but we should be helping each other, encouraging each other, praying for each other, and realizing that we all work for the same God(Boss) with the same goal: Win as many people into the Kingdom as possible. Having said that, I realize that Churches are different and they have distinctives. A person who might come to my Church and get saved may walk out of another Church and write off Christianity all together, and again someone else might go to another Church in our neighborhood and feel they have finally come home and yet, feel they walked into a different planet at our Church. God has made the Churches different to hopefully win more people.
The brother's comments about the line "a different kind of Church" referring to different from the stereotypical Church rather than the crazy one down the street is good insight. I agree that it probably usually refers to a hypothetical Church rather than actual other Churches (Of course I would find it hard to believe that a Pastor/Church would deliberatly belittle other Churches).
The Church has too many things in this world to compete with, without competing with each other. Competition between Churches only causes those who are being saved to loose out. This is a Kingdom issue. We are working for the Kingdom, not for kingdoms.

Two question: First: Are the other congregations around us part of the Body of Christ, the one Church in the place where we live? Second: Are other Christians who belong to other congregations around us our brothers and sisters in Christ? If the answer to these questions is "yes" then we need to speak, act, and serve like we belong to each other. Christians and congregations who behave in such a way will do all in their power to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, avoiding competition to cooperate in Jesus' name to glorify God and reach others for Christ.

As a kid, I remember a preacher telling the church to invite their friends "because if you're not growing, you're dying."

I understand what he meant, but his vision of growth was limited to numbers in the pews and dollars in the collection. We still fall into this kind of thinking. I worry that our desire for church growth is a matter of greed. We want more people so we can build that new sanctuary like the Methodists have, or the Presbyterians, or the Baptists, or the Episcopals, or the Catholics.

The body of Christ isn't some kind of pie. We shouldn't be fighting for the biggest slice of Christians in our community.

Rather than try to grow in size and wealth, let's focus on depth. Let's help every member of our church (including ourselves!) to worship God and serve Him every moment of every day. If we can be faithful to God in that "small" matter, perhaps he will bless us with the numbers growth we like so much.

Jesus told his disciples to give themselves away. Maybe its time institutional churches started doing that too. God is faithful. He knows we have budgets to meet. But we don't need to worry unnecessarily about these things. We can serve our communities, we can serve God, and we can serve His Church (in all its denominations) without expecting anything in return—not membership, not donations, not anything. God will provide what we need. Let's trust Him.

Sid and Randy said it. Being "different" is not necessarily an acusation against the other churches in the community; it is against a prejudice that unchurched people have about most churches.

Unchurched people distrust the church and its message not because they are closed to the gospel or don't want to accept good theology (though this happens). The unchurched hate our churches because Christians are often the rudest, most unloving and judgmental group they have ever met. If you doubt, talk to any waiter or waitress who has to feed their family on the $.37 tip and a tract given by seven of the grumpiest church people on Sunday afternoon.

I don't think "selling" ourselves comparatively is the answer. I do agree that we should proclaim the distinctives of our community of faith. Let them draw the conclusion based on how our people act toward them. They will know if your church is really different than the "other."

That's funny; I wasn't aware that churched was a word or a verb. :)
But you raise an interesting point. Here in New Zealand I suspect there is not as much 'competition' between churches as in the US.

I don't think the church should advertise by marketing itself as different or loving or zealous for the Word or whatever. It's hard to live up to such a statement & its disengenuous, which is exactly why we have a credibility problem in the first place. Folks are cynical in this age of mass marketing and what you say you are doesn't amount to much. I'm all for promoting things but not for manufacturing an image. You can say you're different from that greedy church that preaches on money but if you still take up an offering what's really different in the eyes of an unchurched person? We need to emphasize doing the Word and quit with all the words about how we're different than those churches that offend people because the gospel is offensive anyway and before long every church is going to push that "offensive" button. We need to get out from behind our computers and media campaigns & start touching individual lives with our individual words and actions. Only then will the perception change. Our silly impersonal advertising just makes hypocrisy loom larger in the eyes of the world.

The Church should not be designed to bring people in, but to send people out. We should not try and make our churches too comfortable, but instead move to make it a challenging and uncomfortable place so that we are moved to action.