We have a Celebrate Recovery program at Christ’s Church, and I know it does a lot of good for a lot of people. I am the person in charge of “Babysitting the Building” on Saturday nights during the main CR gathering and locking the building up as the last custodian heads out. I am also the lucky person who buys the food for their weekly meal. I care a lot personally for many of the individuals in the program so this is in no way making fun of them or the program.
However, today while driving down the road I saw signs nearly identical to the ones we use at CC. Several churches advertising the exact program. Our Non-Denominational Christian Church / Church of Christ congregation is doing the same thing as the Methodists, Baptists, and others.
One of the reasons we stopped doing VBS at the small church I used to work with was that no matter how much work we put into our program it was always going to be outdone by the congregation with 60 times as many people down the road which did the exact same program 1 week before ours. I know they did it better because all the kids who were sent around on the yearly VBS tours by their parents told us so.
I was thinking “How in the world can a church distinguish themselves when they are doing the same genericized program created by a church in another state as everyone else is doing?” Then I realized, “Hey, we all use the same Bible (more or less) and yet churches still distinguish themselves.”
The point is that no matter what programs we buy from other people, or the technology we use, the church and its success come down to the people there in the room with you and the personal connection to God you develop together with them.
Now for the reason I wrote this off-track post. I finally had my camera with me and had an opportunity to stop and take the following picture.
This is an old church building that was bought by an antique furniture store. I don’t know the history of the congregation that was formerly there, but the banner out front is hilarious to me. It seems like the ultimate in surrendering to secularized marketing tactics. We are now open to the public and salvation is going at 50% off!
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