Wednesday 17 March 2010

Selling an image - part the third

Sorry about the gap with this, life's been busy and I've been distracted by questions and incidents alike. With regard to marketing the Church, getting people to know about this Christianity thing and the like, the greatest means open to us is that of personal witness and experience. Sadly, I meet many who are antagonistic towards 'Christianity' who find themselves such due to a bad encounter with the 'Church' or because they have a wrong understanding of what 'Church' is or believes.  This is where what we are and how we live our faith hits the road.
    
Some time back I was presented with something that split the UK's population thus:
    
Unchurched (40%) - these were people who'd had no real dealings with 'church' in any real shape, size or form and had no real idea what went on in church or within the Christian faith.
    
Dechurched (40%) - these were people who had had some exposure to 'church' (baptism, marriage, funeral - perhaps Easter or Christmas) but neither attended or had much of an idea about Christianity.
This group split into two further (equally sized) groups - one was 'warm' towards church as it had a good experience (or at least not a bad one) and the other was antagonistic towards church (for a number of reasons).
    
Churched (20%) - these are people who attend church services.
This split into two groups (both representing ten percent of the population). One attending church and knowing what their faith was and why they went and the other attending habitually rather than as a faith statement (life time attenders brought by parents and continuing perhaps?)
    
Taking the UK population as c.60m people, then it is a staggering thought that we have something in the region of 24m untouched by, and ignorant of, the Christian message in what, even today, people consider a 'Christian' country.
    
How we engage with others, come across in the media and generally act is the biggest factor in how Christ and Christianity is perceived. I remember in my pre-Christian years how I viewed church and Christians as boring, outdated and killjoy. Many years later, I had the privilege of having tea with one of the big names in the 'disapproving Christians' camp. As we talked about stuff, they mentioned that they had a daughter getting married soon and I made a joke about sex (assuming that they'd disapprove of it, even in marriage considering the press they usually attracted).
    
I was stunned by the answer, for I was told, "Anything goes in marriage that doesn't use, abuse, demean or degrade their partner or themselves!" Shocked? Absolutely - for I had for years believed that press that this person was a killjoy and against fun (especially 'that' sort of fun).
    
So today, as we go about our daily tasks, we need to realise that there are a great many people out there (6m perhaps?) who have had a bad experience of what church and Christian is and we need to ensure that we don't compound that antagonism. Not only that but there are 24m people out there today who are just waiting for some joined-up thinking, some open-armed loving,  compassion and  a chance to view Jesus as He really is.
    
Now there's a challenge for us all (well it is for me and if it's not for you, spend the spare time you have praying for me).
    
Pax

1 comment:

Jenni said...

And what a challenge! A bit mind boggling ,will definately pray for you and do something myself...

(sorry had remove last comment ...must check my grammar before I press post!)