Like seasonal locusts, the growth consultants have come and gone. Our 
sheep are left to regard one another . . . well, sheepishly. We have heard of the movers and shakers; the goateed visionaries building churches that sizzle with stone cold cultural relevance, hot guitar licks, and narthex Starbucks.
I have fought the good fight. In the interest of progress, I recently declared “Wear an Earring” Sunday for all the male dudes among our elders. “Let the studs wear studs,” I proclaimed. But our folks, bless their octogenarian hearts, tended to get the jewelry tangled in their ear canal hair.
Many of these branding recommendations simply aren’t feasible for us: TV advertising, zen Bible studies, and the like. Our women gasped at the mention of Twittering during worship, believing it to be one of the forbidden sins of the flesh. Ultimately we did what we usually do: We agreed to change our name. Since the church’s inception in the mid-1800s, we have rechristened ourselves, by my count, 37 times. We began in 1853 as First Church. After a couple of generations of denominational mergers, schisms, and carpet-color wars, we identified ourselves as the First Dissenting Pioneer Assembly Uncompromised Covenant Gospel Full Immersion Imputed Righteousness Opposed to Josiah Z. Babcock Fellowship. That was good branding: the name put it all right out there.
Even so, by 1962, we had worked it back down to First Church, and that was kind of nice. There was room on the stationary for actual correspondence again. Then, in the late 1980s, onset of the Great Age of Church Marketing, we were told that our name was crudely insensitive to seekers. New demographics beckoned, so we relaunched as Love Encounter. We kept that moniker for a year or so, though it was never fully embraced by the Merry Methuselites (re-branding of the Forever Young class, formerly known as God’s Golden Vintage, before that the Temperance Battalion, and earlier, the Josiah Z. Babcock End Times Prophecy League).
After Love Encounter, we were The Dove, fAiThpAd, Uncle Bob (never quite got that one), and then, for a fleeting moment when “retro” was the thing–First Church once more.
Our new church name is I Can’t Believe It’s Worship.
Blessings in the Brand that is above all Brands,
BB
Tags: branding, church growth, church names, coolness
For your edification, we have attached a comic strip from my glory years in The Wittenburg Door. It recounts a fairly typical children’s sermon from our worship service, and illustrates–now in spectacular color–my mastery of puppet evangelism. Is puppet evangelism a spiritual gift? I think the Apostle Paul would deny it, but there’s no doubt that the Spirit moves when furry animals and the young folk come together.
To gaze upon the glories of this strip, simply click the link marked “Kids!” at the top of the page.
Yours for puppets in pulpits for poppets,
BB
What do you think of reality TV? It seems to be all the rage these days. Our church has been contacted by one of the big travel channels to be part of a new show. It’s called Most Boring. I have no idea what attracted the producers to our humble flock, but you’ll have to admit that this kind of honor is quite humbling. When I think about Americans seeing what we do on Sundays, I feel so humble I’d like to go hide in the baptismal.
Our own Miss Naomi Muffin
Each week, Most Boring will visit a different location that has been recommended by a frequenter of that venue. (I tend to suspect our own Miss Naomi Muffin of bringing our name to light, but that’s just a hunch.) Contestants on the show will attempt to sit through a typical session of what passes for local activity. In our case, it will be a worship service; the previous week, it will have been a weekend conference on new trends in soil analysis.
The show will be suspenseful for those watching at home, as contestants go all out to stay awake. The modern attention span can only handle so much quietude. The cast must endure the entire vigil without iPhones or gourmet coffee blends, so it will be quite the harrowing experience. Those who survive our service (no skipping out during the hymn of invitation!) will move on to the next week. For that episode, they will be asked to study several thousand uploaded self-taken profile pictures on a single stranger’s Facebook account. I can only imagine what that would be like.
They say there is no such thing as bad publicity. I suppose we’ll find out in the new TV season!
Stay tuned,
BB
Tags: Boring, reality tv, short attention span, television, worship
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