Founding Principles 8-17-08
An article in the August 14, 2008 issue of Fortune magazine was titled “Wal-Mart enters the ad age”. It discussed the struggles that Wal-Mart’s marketing department had been through in recent years and the solution that they found. I think that this deserves closer scrutiny, because the problems Wal-Mart encountered mirror closely the problems that the church has encountered recently.
In recent years Wal-Mart, as detailed in the aforementioned article, experimented with its image in trying to compete with rival Target; they hired a marketing expert who tried to spice up their ad campaigns and introduce trendier brands. The results speak volumes: the ads flopped, the brands didn’t sell, and the scandalized expert left. And Wal-Mart learned a valuable lesson.
For most of its history, Wal-Mart used advertising merely to get their name before the public and preach the “lowest cost” message. Ads were budget affairs with little high-production value to them (compare the smiley face slashing prices to the rival ads featuring hip songs and choreographed dancing). But Wal-Mart destroyed all competitors because people came to Wal-Mart to buy lots of stuff at low prices. When they forsook their founding principles, they lost their focus and their customers (among the most price-sensitive in the marketplace) lost interest. So Wal-Mart abandoned its new, failed campaign and returned to its roots: they took a phrase that founder Sam Walton had spoken in 1992 and renewed their vigor around the new campaign of “Save money. Live better”.
So that’s great for Wal-Mart; what does it have to do with the church? Everything. The church had a founder – Jesus Christ; the church was given founding principles – going out, making disciples of all nations, baptizing them, and teaching the to obey everything Jesus commanded. When we stay with those principles, we stay on track; when we depart from them, we lose focus and purpose.
The church has struggled for relevance over the past twenty years or so. This is ironic, because God’s word remains highly relevant and the need for Christ is even more apparent today than ever before. But we are often caught between two opposing forces: the desire to remain unchanged and the desire to change.
We have people who want things to remain as they have been – not meaning scripture, but the manmade things that we do to facilitate our worship such as our buildings, order of worship, styles of fellowship gatherings, programs (such as buses), etc. Now these are not in any way bad things, but they must be recognized for what they are: culturally sensitive things that we have designed. And if they are culturally sensitive, then they can lose their relevance over time.
We also have people who want to change everything about the church in order to remain relevant. Now, if they propose to change the manmade things (such as buildings, advertising and programs), then that should be looked at carefully; sometimes changes in these areas can yield great benefits. But changes should be weighed with a great degree of caution. We should never be trying to update God’s word in order to make it relevant – it already is relevant. And when making changes to the manmade things, we need to exercise great care and reflection so that the changes are made appropriately.
Just as Wal-Mart discovered, the church needs the guidance of its founder’s principles. Jesus established his church and told us what our guiding principles were to be. As we focus on those, we are successful; as we depart from those, we fail. And just as Wal-Mart lost customers when it lost focus, the church loses its people when it loses focus; Wal-Mart’s customers are sensitive to the low-cost image, and the church’s audience is sensitive to the sound doctrine image.
We need to make sure that everything we do is done with our founding principles in mind. We need to make disciples of Jesus: they must be baptized, taught God’s word and taught to obey that word. Everything else that we do should support that mission. If it hinders, it needs to change or be removed. If it helps, it should remain or be expanded. God’s word reaches people just fine. Let’s share it with others.
-Charles Peterson