Is your church’s advertising like the Labor party’s?

August 4, 2010 in for Churches, Pastors

Many of the election advertisements are really annoying me. Take for example this advertisement:

They annoy me because of the effect they are trying to have on me. They are trying to motivate me by fear, to not vote for the Coalition. There are lots of ways to motivate people.

  • Guilt
  • Obligation
  • Gratitude
  • Reward
  • Punishment
  • Social good

In this situation however, they’ve played the fear card, and rather than inspiring me with a vision for the future, I’m being scared into ‘you might think we’re bad, but they’d be even worse!’.

Apart from annoying me, this advertisement got me thinking. What is the tone of the advertising for our churches? We’re all advertising – from the poster out the front, to the postcard in the letterbox, to the  invitation to the ladies dessert and coffee night or the A5 promotional piece for the next Christianity Explained course.

A couple of questions to ponder and discuss:

  • How do we seek to motivate people to join us at church and our myriad of events?
  • What is the overall tone of these messages?
  • What emotions do these messages attempt to tap in to?
  • If you weren’t a Christian, and you saw/received one of these advertising pieces, what effect would it have on you?

Update: scaring Australians out of their wits was ‘The Pitch’ challenge on the Gruen Transfer tonight…

  • Andrew Beeston

    Have you seen onevote.com.au ? This is an even more annoying video/site because apparently it’s ‘Christian’.

  • http://www.andrewmackie.com.au Andrew

    I agree, but there’s one thing that’s worse than guilt, etc – false hope. Both Rudd and Obama sold it and are now paying the price (as may be the countries they do/did govern).

    Churches must ensure that they don’t sell a false hope – entertainment, spectacle, friendship, finding a partner, etc – to fill the pews. We instead need to communicate the one true hope:

    “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” 1 Pe 1:3–5 (NIV)