Emerging Spirit

The United Church of Canada made a splash two years ago with a series of quirky magazine ads designed to connect with socially progressive 25-45 year olds. They followed up with a website called wondercafe which was supposed to attract spiritual seekers who weren't necessarily into church. And, training events to show congregations how to welcome all the new folks who were going to arrive as a result of our efforts. The budget for the whole "Emerging Spirit" program will be $10 million.

It's becoming clear that it hasn't worked. There's been no discernible increase in church attendance. And wondercafe has become a chat room for about 100 regular participants, most of whom are United Church insiders. The word is that once the money runs out, it will be finished.

The intent was good -- but badly misconceived. The church didn't appreciate that there's a huge distance between someone thinking "Gee, that's an interesteing ad" and actually visiting their local United Church -- or even checking out the new website. The ads weren't really selling anything -- except a kind of vague impression of the United Church.

ANd they didn't appreciate that even if you get someone to visit their local United Church, that's a long, long way from getting them to form any kind of meaningful relationship. I have found how hard it is to keep connected with people who are already supposed to be a part of the congregation. There are just so many things these days to interrupt that connection.

The first rule of advertising is that you have to keep it up. Running one newspaper ad is a waste of money. And, in terms of a long-term strategy, even running six months of ads in a selection of magazines is a waste of money because once those ads have stopped, whatever they were about goes off people's radar screen immediately.

Recently I read an article that said that advertising isn't working the way it used to. People have learned to tune out and ignore ads. They have become cynical about their claims. What counts now is that there is something about the product that basically sells itself. The i-Pod is a good example. Apple has advertised it, but that's not why everybody has one. It's because people tell their friends about it and the product is appealing enough that they go out and buy one too.

Here's the basic flaw in the Emerging Spirit approach. It's old thinking. It's promoting something without paying attention to whether the product is any good. In other words, what's going on in our congregations is the problem, not just the fact that we haven't advertised it.

And that goes back to real basics. How many churches have honestly asked themselves why someone who isn't already committed would want to haul their butts out of bed on Sunday and join them, instead of doing something else. The only reason I can see is if people sense that there's something life-transforming that the church has to offer that they can't find anywhere else. And that pretty much lets out "community" or "friendliness" as motivating factors, because people can get that in lots ofother places.

So what is it? Maybe we need to worry less about being friendly and welcoming and more about the content of what we're offering. And then the "product" might start to "sell " itself.