And why is the home page of the JAAL site a bunch of unscreened postcards, with poor quality images, as well as copyright images stolen and uploaded? Can we not respect intellectual property?

And shouldnt the JAAL facebook profile picture viral media campaign at least provide a logo in a square, so we are not reading “esu” everywhere…?

And the company who designed it – http://www.webedy.com/ actually have some really nice looking stuff they’ve done.

So maybe there’s something good coming!

Wayne

Any chance you can talk to them and offer to fix it up? It seems a waste to spend so much on TV advertising which points to a website, that is a dud.

I mean it’s even very clunky to find a local church event from the website.

You could work up something pretty quickly I’d think that would be much better.

Give them a ring! Let us know how you go.

Wayne

“The research revealed that Christianity is widely rejected by most non-Christians as an anachronistic and undesirably rigid set of doctrines, while the Church is widely regarded as an old-fashioned organisation that is guilty of failing to live up to its own ideals of tolerance, forgiveness and humility.

While we may wish to present Christian faith in God as a distinct and intrinsically good idea, it is practically impossible to make any reference to Christian faith, Christ’s teachings or the Bible without immediately eliciting negative associations surrounding the Christian Church and its doctrines.

Most non-Christians believe that they already live in accordance with essential Christian values, and do not need either to accept articles of Christian faith or participate in Christian worship to fulfill the basic requirement that qualify someone as being ‘a good person’, such as ‘do unto others’ and ‘love thy neighbour’.

The commonly and often unwittingly accepted principle of secular humanism is that individuals need to look inwards in search of personal meaning and fulfillment, a never-ending search directed towards realising your full potential, rather than a process that leads to some final, ‘ideal’ state of consciousness.

At a more fundamental level, non-Christians tend to reject the idea of ‘one truth’ as a divisive concept that is to blame for much of the conflict in the world today, and that clashes with the secular humanist ideal of taking personal responsibility for lifestyle choices and interpersonal values.

Against this background of attitudes and beliefs, the response to ‘born-again’ Christian testimonials tends to be overwhelmingly negative

• to accept Christ as the only way to find meaning in life represent a failure to accept personal responsibility or realise self-awareness
• to accept Christian beliefs as the ultimate truth is to reject contemporary ideals of multicultural tolerance and openness to new ideas

(Angus Kinnard – Futurebrand)”

Our research shows that sharing the Gospel in the Australian community needs to be done thoughtfully and carefully, connecting with people and stirring them to consider the message. It is not about pandering to them or watering down the message or humanising the gospel, it is about being thoughtful in how we communicate.

What I am concerned about with the JAAL campaign is the same thing. Have the promoters researched and considered how the community will see these signs?
If I see a sign thanking Jesus for birds with pants on I either think Christians are weirdo’s or I think they don’t take their beliefs seriously. Same with the chairs. And who cares about hair when I don’t understand the biblical reference.

It seems that we try so hard to communicate Jesus in the ways that we think will get through. How hard have we tried to understand people first, and then communicate Jesus?

it is possible that ad campaigns can open up conversation, but a conversation where their is a higher suspicion of motive.

my chief concern is that the vast emphasis of thanksgiving in the New Testament is for the person and redeeming work of Jesus Christ, and much less so for God’s providential grace in creation ( like monkeys and back hair etc). Interestingly Rove was the only person who voiced what I thought was an appropriate critique- it all seems a bit trite ( no matter what conversations might flow from that) .

blog boldly.
enjoy his grace.
Shane.

Regarding your second point, I know you support it, and that your critique was in many ways an expression of your support and desire for the campaign to succeed. This is great.

However, it’s perfectly acceptable to be a gospel-hearted Christian in Australia and, for example, to think that the whole thing isn’t a very good idea.

jml

I thought your critique was fairly balanced – and as your website is about helping people “Communicate Jesus” better I don’t really see a problem with you voicing your opinion here as to how the campaign could have been better thought through.

From what I’ve read the firm behind this campaign aren’t amateurs – they seem to be hoping to fill a bit of a gap in the Christian marketing marketplace. If they want that to be the case then they should be excited to read well thought out critique – the suggestions you’ve provided here are helpful, but the gracious rebuke in the previous post seemed to me to be a fair offering of your gifts and experience to the conversation.

Lets face it – if the people at churchmarketingsucks had written the same review you had it would have been more stinging simply because of the name of their website.

As someone with a professional interest in PR and marketing who’s heading down the path of full time ministry I think your site is an incredibly useful resource. It would lose that if you weren’t giving thoughtful responses to the biggest Christian marketing push since the Billy Graham crusades.