I used to work in sales.
It was always important that we understood the unique selling points of our products – the things that made our products stand out from the crowd. Obviously not all unique selling points are of interest to the customer, but if we can identify what we are offering that no one else is offering, then when a customer does come to us, we can be sure they’re buying something that meets their unique needs.
The church is not a product.
We are not selling God.
However, the church does have something unique to offer. The good news of Jesus Christ. This is not unique to any one specific church community, but is shared by all churches. All churches have the good news of God’s love to share with the world.
I recently went to a village fair, and I saw there was a church stall. On the stall were sweets and bric-a-brac. There was also an array of alcoholic drinks with raffle numbers on it. People at the fair could buy a raffle ticket and children could win sweets, adults could win drinks. It was all a bit of fun and raised money for the church.
As an observer I wondered what we were communicating.
I thought back to a time I met someone handing out “Jesus Loves You” postcards at a railway station. The postcards were clever, professionally made, glossy and high quality. The message I received wasn’t that Jesus loved me (I get told a lot of things all the time and I don’t believe everything I hear)… what I learned was that if I became a Christian then I too could hang around railway stations handing out “Jesus Loves You” postcards. That didn’t seem like good news to me.
As I looked at the church stall I thought, what message am I hearing? I think I saw this: “the church needs your money.” The truth is that local churches do need money, and the person helping us raise money was doing exactly the right thing to help… I just found myself wondering what it would look like if the church knew what it was offering, and found a way to talk about it with integrity and honesty in an appealing and welcoming way. Do we need sales training? I hope not!
What could a church stall at a village fair look like? What is the unique selling point of the church? Is it: “God knows you, loves you and wants to welcome you into a immortal and eternal life of liberation in the heart of God’s good creation?”
I wonder what a church stall would look like if that was what it was offering.