This Does Not Compute

The other day we received a computer catalog in the mail. Not a surprising event around our house, what with my appetite for tech reflected in several magazine subscriptions.

But this catalog was sent by a manufacturer from which we purchased a laptop for Shari just four months ago. Come to think of it, this catalog was the second catalog we have received from that manufacturer since our laptop purchase. Prior to that, we had never heard from them. We knew about them. We saw their ads on television and in magazines. But no contact...until after we bought.

I guess this is how they do things in the computer business. It was my purchase of a desktop PC from a different online retailer back in 1997 that put me on its mailing list for the first time. I loved browsing through the catalogs, but they never prompted a purchase.

I have little business sense, no doubt, but isn’t this odd timing? Wouldn’t it have made more sense for the first computer company to send us catalogs before we purchased? Couldn’t their in-house marketing whizzes figure out that households known to have purchased a computer within the last few months – from them, no less – are probably less likely to purchase a machine than say, households not known to have made such a buy? Why wouldn’t they direct their resources to potential rather than current customers? Or, at least delay delivery of such promotional material for a few months, to allow their new customers to settle in?

That’s a question I could pose to a lot of Christian congregations, the one I serve, included. Our practice is to wait for customers – whom we call worship guests or visitors – to come to our stores, which we call churches. Once a customer comes through our doors, we’re on him or her like a Best Buy blue shirt on Ma and Pa Kettle.

We sell congregational friendliness. We sell youth ministries. We offer sample catalogs called newsletters or bulletins/programs. We put that customer on mailing lists, if we can ferret out his or her contact information. During the week that follows the initial visit we send follow-up notes of appreciation or make brief home visits bearing gifts of appreciation.

After customers hit our stores, after we see them spend hands-on time with our products, we direct our resources to achieving their return business. And if they choose more formally to do business with us – what we call joining the church – why, after that blessed event we bombard them with information and invitations.

After....... Like the computer company. After........

The problem with the church importing the computer company’s marketing strategy is that Jesus didn’t say, “Go ye back to your homes and wait for the world to come to you. Then once it does, make disciples of it for me.”

And he didn’t send his disciples home in pairs to await the arrival of possessed and dispossessed people, potential targets of their newfound authority to do ministry.

Jesus sent them out into the world and into the countryside. He sent them to meet people at their points of need. He sent living catalogs into people homes before those people even went shopping.

Yet the church so often simply waits for people “out there” to come in, passing the time by waiting on its own people, its most loyal and long-standing customers.

Why do we spend so large a proportion of our resources on people who have already bought into Jesus? Why aren’t we directing our catalogs to new customers in untapped markets, to people who may not even know about the product we offer, its amazing price, and (eternal) lifetime warranty? Might our flawed business model in part explain the growing irrelevance of so many denominations and congregations? Might you and I need to adopt a new vision for how and with whom we share our personal experience with Jesus?

Catalogs to people who just bought your product. Evangelistic zeal toward people already in the pews. Somehow, this does not compute.

Pray with Me:
God, Jesus told us to take the news to the world. Help us see the world beyond our doorsteps and outside our comfort zones. He went to astonishing lengths to make sure we got the news. The least we could do is try to return the favor. In his name we pray, Amen.