Category Archives: Marketing & church growth

Deconstructing “standing on the side of love”

An anonymous correspondent wrote recently about the General Assembly experience, noting in part: “…all the Standing on the Side of Love stuff about did me in….”

I realized that felt the same way about the “Standing on the Side of Love” catchphrase and logo as did Anonymous Correspondent. Because I feel that way, and because I am a postmodern guy, let’s deconstruct both the catch-phrase and the logo:

  • Linguistic deconstruction: Love doesn’t have sides, certainly not sides that you can stand on. This is sloppy language, which implies either sloppy thinking or doublespeak (see below).
  • Theological deconstruction: The catchphrase implies that love is on one side (our side), and hate or evil is on the other side. Instead of an “I-Thou” relationship, the catchphrase promotes an exclusivist theological position. (This is actually consistent with most Unitarian Universalist theological praxis, if not with professed Universalist theology).
  • Political deconstruction: Politically speaking, the catchphrase is applied to subjects as different as same-sex marriage and immigration reform. Thus, the catchphrase becomes a form of political doublespeak: “It means what we want it to mean.”
  • Pop culture deconstruction 1: The catchphrase is a blatant attempt to use late twentieth century modernist marketing techniques. The catchphrase, through its inanity and puerility, aims to reach a broad market segment; in its meaninglessness, it attempts to be all things to all people.
  • Pop culture deconstruction 2: The graphics for the campaign, roughly-drawn hearts, attempts to look cute (sort of like Hello Kitty for the liberal religious set). But because the graphic image is repeated over and over without variation (except in size), it comes across as a modernist attempt to force an unvarying narrative on us, with no chance of customizing it for specific and tiny segments of the population.

Feel free to add your own deconstructions of the “Standing on the Side of Love” catchphrase and logo. You will receive extra points for use of irony, multisyllabic-words, and “quotation marks”. Feel equally free to defend “Standing on the Side of Love.” But since this is a postmodern blog, you will be expected to express your feelings, and shy away from reason (just like the “Standing on the Side of Love” catchphrase does… hey, wait a minute….)

Key demographic info. for liberal churches

Executive summary: We’re seeing the biggest birth rate since the Baby Boom. Liberal churches need to pay attention to this demographic trend, by welcoming multiethnic families with young children.

So what’s the biggest news for liberal religion in the U.S.? No, it’s not the lousy economy that’s tempting churches into cutting hours for religious educators and other staff members. No, it’s not the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president, which is already changing people’s perceptions of race and racial boundaries.

The biggest news for liberal religion in the U.S. is contained in a report released this month by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Here’s the relevant quotation from the report’s abstract:

“In 2006, births and fertility rates increased for most states, age groups, and race and Hispanic origin groups. A total of 4,265,555 births were registered in the United States in 2006, 3 percent more than in 2005, and the largest number of births in more than four decades.” [emphasis mine] Link to full report.

In short, 2006 saw the largest number of babies being born since 1961 — the largest number of babies being born since the Baby Boom. Some of the implications for liberal churches are obvious:

(1) Good child care: We had better have good child care in place on Sunday mornings, so that when all those toddlers born in 2006 show up, their parents see clean, safe, pleasant play areas staffed by professional, friendly child care providers.

(2) Increase DRE hours: Many liberal churches are facing budget shortfalls, and have to cut staff salaries in order to balance the budget. The obvious course of action is to cut the minister’s hours or salary, while increasing the line item for the Director of Religious Education. (I say this as a minister in a cash-strapped church, because I know the long-term solution to our immediate revenue problems involves attracting families with young children — if I want to have a job at all, I had better make sure there are lots of kids in my church.)

(3) Become a multiethnic church: The birth rates of white folks are not rising as fast as some other ethnic groups. To have access to the biggest potential pool of newcomers, liberal churches cannot be limited to being ethnic churches, e.g., it’s not going to be enough to be a white folks’ church any longer. Barack Obama’s election broke the second-to-last big racial barrier, the last one being all-white churches. To survive and thrive, white and other racially limited churches have to break that last racial barrier.

(4) Improve kid’s programming: Liberal churches need compelling religious education programs that make kids want to come to church, that help kids learn more, and (key point) that make parents believe that church is vital for their kids. I think that means going beyond limited models of Sunday school. More of my thoughts on this here, but here’s one key point: “For school-aged children, the mix of programs might include multi-generational activities (common worship experiences, social events, intergenerational choirs) along with mixed-age programs for children (workshop rotation, and special projects such as young people’s choir and plays) in addition to closely graded classes containing only one age group.”

(5) Finally, pay attention to demographics: We all know that there are condo complexes that are limited to “active adults over 55,” and some liberal churches might be able to exploit that same idea to build thriving churches of aging Baby Boomers. But my bet is the most secure demographic niche to target right now is white and non-white families with young children — that’s where the growth is, and that’s where the future of the liberal churches lies.

Dropped through our mail slot

When I went down the stairs to go to work this morning, I found that someone had dropped a flyer through the mail slot. This is what it said (I am retaining all the capital letters used in the original):

WATCH THE HOUSE GUESTS SLEEP?
WATCH A PARALYZED WOMAN WALK?
THIS IS REALITY TV
DIRECTV CHANNEL 365 EVERY NIGHT AT 8.00PM-ET
watch online at: www.god.tv/realitytv

As usual, the conservative evangelical Christians seem to be well ahead of religious liberals in their use of new media. Won’t some nice liberal religious philanthropist step forward to fund a Unitarian Universalist online video series that’s also shown on cable TV? No? You say they big ads in dead tree publications like Time magazine? Oh well….

Quiz

Mr. Crankypants was pleased to learn that the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) has been standing up for religious liberal values in the aftermath of the shootings during a worship service at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church back in July. It is the Right Thing To Do.

But Mr. Crankypants wishes to point out that taking out a full-page newspaper ad in the New York Times on Sunday, August 10, may not be the most effective way of standing up for religious liberal values. For example, here’s what marketing guru Seth Godin has to say about full-page newspaper ads, taken from a short essay titled “Why The Wall Street Journal annoys me so much,” from his book Purple Cow:–

“The Journal is the poster child for marketing old-think. Every day, more than a million dollars’ worth of full-age ads run in this paper — testimony to traditional marketers’ belief that the old ways are still valid.

“A full-age ad in the Journal costs more than a house in Buffalo, New York [Mr. Crankypants notes that the August 10 full-page ad cost the UUA $130,000]. Page after page of dull gray ads…. If you took 90% of these ads, and switched the logos around, no one could tell…. One morning, with time to kill at a fine hotel, I interrupted a few people who were reading the Journal over breakfast. I waited until they had finished the first section, and then I asked them if they could name just two of the companies that had run full-page ads. Not one person could….

“Finally, I asked them the million-dollar question (literally). Had they ever requested more information about a product because they’d seen a full-page ad in the Journal?

“You can probably guess the answer.”

Thank you for that insight, Seth.

OK, now here’s a quiz — and no cheating (which includes no texting your friends to ask them for the right answer):

(a) Did you read the ad in the New York Slime? Actually, did you even see the ad, let alone read it?
(b) If you do read dead-tree news publications, do you ever read the ads?
(c) If you had $130,000 to spend on anything relating to publicity around the shootings at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, how would you spend that money?

Mr. Crankypants awaits the appearance of your answers to this quiz in the comments section below….

Elevator speech #4

Note: video host blip.tv is defunct, so this video no longer exists.

The final elevator speech that I videoblogged at the General Assembly workshop on “Spreading UUism Using New Media.” I greatly appreciate the four people who agreed to talk in front of a camera — it’s much harder to give your elevator speech to a camera as opposed to a real person. I really liked each of the four elevator speeches.

Now it’s your turn. Videotape your “elevator speech,” summarizing your religious faith in a brief statement that lasts about as long as a ride in an elevator. Post your video online at YouTube, or Blip.tv. And please put a link to your video in the comments below, so we can all watch the various elevator speeches.

Elevator speech #2

Another elevator speech from the workshop “Spreading UUism Using New Media.”

Note: video host blip.tv is defunct, so this video no longer exists.

Transcript of this elevator speech by commenter Martin:

Q: I heard you say you’re a Unitarian Universalist. What does that mean?

A: That’s a big mouthful. But it means that we are a movement of diverse people who unite around the idea of human dignity. And we figure that religious mysteries should be determined ultimately by each person. You can be humanist or theist, Christian or non-Christian. But so long as we’re committed to the dignity and worth of every person, we believe that we can be in a religious community together.

Q: Sounds like a pretty cool church. So where is your church?

A: [gives address]. We meet at 11 o’clock, and let me know when you are coming, I’ll be there to greet you.

Elevator speech #1

During the workshop “Spreading UUism Using New Media,” we shot four short videos. I asked volunteers from the audience to come forward and give their “elevator speech,” i.e., the capsule summary of Unitarian Universalism that they would give if they were riding on an elevator with someone who wanted to know what the Unitarian Uni-whatever stuff was, anyway….

P.S. If you think you could do a better elevator speech, don’t complain in the comments — shoot a video of yourself giving your elevator speech, post it online somewhere, and then give us the link to your elevator speech in the comments.

Note: video host blip.tv is defunct, so this video no longer exists.

Spreading Unitarian Universalism Using New Media

1. Introduction

Hi, this is a workshop called “Spreading UUism Using New Media.” I’ll quickly introduce myself. I’m Dan Harper, and I’m serving as the minister of First Unitarian Church in New Bedford, Massachusetts. We’re a small church that’s trying to grow, and using new media is important part of our growth strategy. Before I became a minister, I worked in sales, and I also have a background in visual arts, and half a degree in creative writing.

Peter Bowden was also supposed to be here as my co-presenter. Peter is an independent television producer and consultant. However, last month Peter got a job working on a project for public television which is requiring him to work seven days a week, so he was unable to attend General Assembly.

What we hope to do during this workshop is tell you how your congregation can use new media — like Web sites, video, recorded music, and so on — to spread the word about what your congregation is doing, and what you stand for. Continue reading →

Churches as over-55 communities

Mr. Crankypants loves Julius Lester. On his blog, he wrote this delightfully snarky post that sounds like it’s about politics, but is really about generational differences. Writing about Hillary Clinton, Lester points out that “her ideas are old.” In of itself this is not an original thought, but Lester goes on to add: “She’s 60, and she sounds like she hasn’t had a new thought in the past 40 years. I say this as someone who is 9 years older than she is, so I know an old idea when I hear it.”

Mr. Crankypants smells a new generation gap. The Baby Boom generation is so doggone big that they wind up spending most of their time talking to one another, not to younger people, and avoiding new ideas. And because they are such a big market, capitalist culture caters to their every whim to the point where they can pretty much insulate themselves from many new ideas in the world. As someone who lives at the tail end of the Baby Boom (being a few months older than Barack Obama), Mr. Crankypants knows this to be true — if he wanted to, he could spend all his time hanging out with people a few years older than himself and talking about the great music of the 1960s and the great literature of the 1960s and the great political movements of the 1960s, etc., none of which have ever been equaled, blah blah blah. (Actually, Mr. C. hates the 1960s, but you get the idea.) Baby Boomers tend to be full of old ideas, even when they think they are full of new ideas.

Not that anyone at this blog is much of a supporter of Barack Obama. It’s tough to get thrilled about a rhetorician who is further to the right than, and probably just as authoritarian as, Richard Nixon; and who doesn’t seem to understand what it means to be a member of a church to boot. But this isn’t a post about politics, this is a post that uses politics as an example of this new generation gap.

For another example of how how this new generation gap seems to work, we need look no further than racism. Julius Lester has this to say about Hillary Clinton: “Even worse, however, is her pandering to white racism has made us a far more racially divided nation than we were before her march to the White House was stopped by Barack Obama. I cannot ever forgive her for that.” But it’s not Hillary Clinton alone who tends to pander to racist tendencies — the Baby Boom generation as a whole tends to do the same thing. It seems to Mr. Crnakypants that many Baby Boomers (of all skin colors) believe that American racism got solved in the 1960s, between the Civil Rights movement (if they’re white) or the Black Power movement (if they’re black). Those old ideas tend to miss the fact that since 1980 racism has mutated and gotten more virulent, and it no longer responds to the old cures. Thus in Unitarian Universalism, Baby Boomers are still using second wave feminist techniques to try to fight racism, without seeing that second wave feminist techniques like consciousness-raising and identity groups were designed for a racism that no longer exists (nor do they see the class bias inherent in those techniques, but that’s another conversation).

And don’t assume this new generation gap (no capitals) is like the old Generation Gap of the 1960s, because they’re utterly different. The younger generations today aren’t bothering with open rebellion, as allegedly happened in the 1960s, they’re just creating new forms and ideas without bothering to talk much to the Baby Boomers.

So how is this new generation gap playing out in liberal churches? The Baby Boomers are in firm control of our local churches and our denomination, now that the GI Generation has started dying off. Baby Boomers are setting up the churches to suit their needs and their worldview, with the result that younger generations are staying away in droves. Our churches are starting to look like those over-55 communities where children and younger adults are allowed to visit but not stay for very long. This is perhaps most obviously manifested in the intensive efforts to create “young adult programming,” which sounds good on paper but in practice functions pretty much like those restrictive covenants in over-55 communities.

Mr. Crankypants is thinking about making stickers that say, “This Church Is An Over-55 Community,” the idea being that you could buy such a sticker and slap it on your church’s sign when no one is looking. Truth in advertising, don’t you know.