Jesus Is Not a Brand

..."Marketing is the process of promoting, selling, and distributing goods or services. It's a business concept, but something very similar happens in the church. As much as we bristle at comparing evangelism to a sales pitch, there are certain similarities."

There are indeed similarities. But evangelism and sales are not the same. And we market the church at our peril if we are blind to the critical and categorical difference between the Truth and a truth you can sell. In a marketing culture, the Truth becomes a product. People will encounter it with the same consumerist worldview with which they encounter every other product in the American marketplace.

Thus our dilemma: The product we are selling isn't like every other product—it isn't even a product at all. But if the gospel is not a product, how can we market it? And if we can't avoid marketing it, how can we keep from turning it into the product it isn't?

Last month I came across an article in Christianity Today titled Jesus Is Not a Brand by Tyler Wigg-Stevenson. It was so thought-provoking that I read it twice. The author makes a strong case that we all look at things through our modern consumer-age filters, and that the local church community is key to genuine Christianity. Take a look!