A well-known and growing church in my town recently changed its name. The rationale for this change was commendable, I suppose - to more accurately identify what the church had become in order to more adequately define themselves to the public. This “rebranding” of the church has become “a thing” that churches do for the purpose of making themselves distinctive, attractive, and appealing to the world at large. Such brand-consciousness is one of the many ways that churches have adopted the gospel of consumerism to achieve success in the religious realm.
For many decades the denominational brand was sufficient - we were Baptist or Catholic, Lutheran or Methodist, Presbyterian or Pentecostal, etc. These were the brands that said all that was needed about any particular church. No more. In my over thirty years of ministry I witnessed the movement, particularly among Protestant churches, to diminish the importance of denominational identity in favor of a more localized, individual brand. The reasoning went that people didn’t really care anymore about denominational affiliation, they were simply looking for a community of people (like themselves) where they felt a sense of belonging. This shift has even given rise to the diminishment of the word “church,” itself - with names like The Cove, The Arbor, The Sanctuary, Crossroads, Good Shepherd, and the like - every local church seeking to competitively distinguish themselves from the church up the street, like restaurants vying for patrons. And, of course, each local church seeks to develop their own logo to establish their brand. One billboard along the highway points to this shift, advertising, “We’re church - just different!” Whatever that means. . .
Call me cynical but I believe such innovation is missing the intent of what it means to be a people of God. Indeed, “innovation” is the latest buzzword in church-growth strategies, which reminds me of a business seminar I attended decades ago. The keynote speaker told us that his mantra was “Innovate or die.” Apparently, church-growth-experts have adopted this idea in the belief that church is a business that will only succeed if we constantly reinvent ourselves, striving for the idol of relevancy in order to attract the most consumers of what we have to sell. The church with the best entertainment, widest cafeteria of choices, or most fine-tuned vision statement, will, in this model, achieve the greatest success.
Pardon me for being a contrarian. The church was never established to be a success in the world but to be an outpost of the kingdom of God, and necessarily, an alternative to the world’s definitions of success. The church is built on Peter’s confession that Jesus is the Messiah, not on any growth strategy. The church does not thrive because of rebranding but because the gospel is proclaimed - that Jesus was crucified, dead and buried, and on the third day, rose again. The church lives not because of innovation, but because Jesus lives. The church’s missional success is not always quantifiable in consumerist terms. The church does not exist to be relevant to the world, but to make the world relevant to the gospel of Jesus Christ. There are times when the gospel will be proclaimed and the hurting world will beat a path to the church, but there are times when the gospel will disturb and even repel a world bent on self-destruction. Jesus wept over Jerusalem, lamenting, “How I have longed to gather you under my wing as a mother hen gathers her brood, but you would not!” The gospel is attractive for some, and distressing for others. No “brand” can capture the nuances of what it means to be an Easter people.
Branding strategies are misguided, at best. God will always have a people in the world. Sometimes a host. Sometimes a remnant. To be God’s people does not depend on our efforts to position ourselves properly in the religious market. To be God’s people simply means to have died to ourselves in order to be raised to new life by the mercy of Jesus. Such risen people will always provide the necessary witness that God expects, and that the world needs to see and hear. Could it be that an empty cross is all the branding we need?
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