Advertising Versus Evangelism

We are specialists on making advertisings emphasizing exactly what we are not. This is almost always a rule. In the desperation to reach a big group of people, trampling ethics becomes something common. It’s needed to perceive that ethics for the elaboration of product’s media cannot be used for the spread of gospel.

This happens because the gospel cannot be associated to a product. The publicity of a product almost always looks for an emotional appeal so that people can buy it. But emotionalism is not the right feeling for those that truly know the gospel; for is is something voluble that won’t last long. Whoever surrender to the emotional appeal and buy something, almost always will change their acquisition for a “better one”, in a near future.

Another big problem we face when we talk about evangelism is to try to explain marketing concepts in the churches. Conceptually, churches use to be exactly the opposite of what their divulgation affirms. This duality between reality and media provokes tremendous deceptions. Also it is a lie. I have seen many people that got impressed by street practices or even by events called “evangelistic”, that abused the artistic expressions. But coming to the Sunday night service, such people felt deceived. It seemed like all that cool environment was just a bait to present more of the “same as always”.

And perhaps the most common type of deception caused by advertising is when a person joins a church on the prospect of living with people better than themselves. This is something that almost always ends up badly. After all, the church is the community of the repenting; of those who are looking for a life of holiness, but… how much better are we than those outside? In the anxiety to be walking with people “with no problem”, many end up forming groups organized by the worse way of affinity: their difficulties. And those have all the necessary to promote big tragedies. But if our marketing approached truth, people would know that in our midst, we work as in a hospital: many sick, looking for constant recovery.

I know a church that has a banner with pictures of some hand-picked people in their facade. But, as time passed by, some abandoned faith. Including, two guys revealed themselves as homosexuals and withdrew completely from the community. That banner is considered by many as an advertising that went wrong, and, with some urgency, needs to be replaced. Including, some argue the use of image banks (with pictures of not known people) in making a new façade. But… is there anything more authentic than the old banner? The old one represents truth. It says there are people with problems among us. That some maybe won’t reach the end though they swear they love Christ. And it also reveals that we do have problems just as any other people.

This is the publicity of the truth; that doesn’t lie to achieve results. And for sure and evangelism based on lies can’t be used to represent the one who is the way, the TRUTH and the life.

Ariovaldo Ramos

Source: Ariovaldo.com.br