Reading Time: 8 minutes The dynamics of sharing and sales couldn’t be more different. And y’all, it has always tickled me pink that evangelism-minded Christians fight as hard as they do against any insinuation that what they’re doing is selling, not sharing.
Salesmanship
Posted inReligion
Why evangelical youth ministers can’t ‘innovate’
Reading Time: 10 minutes Caught between the devil of a church model that many evangelical leaders openly criticize and the deep blue sea of an empty youth ministry, evangelical youth ministers have little choice.
Posted inMeaning & Purpose
Why Christians push a false narrative of hopelessness
Reading Time: 12 minutes Christians’ false narrative of hopelessness represents a big part of their current marketing to their target customers. But in truth, it only worsens the actual hopelessness that their salespeople claim to be alleviating.
Posted inReligion
Testimonies: The land where dreams come true
Reading Time: 9 minutes The other day, I was thinking about Christian conversion testimonies. In a lot of ways, they function as narrative stories. However, their similarity to well-told tales mostly ends at having a general three-act structure. They can’t actually stand as good stories because they don’t reflect anything real in the human situation — and they’d be bad that way even if their tellers didn’t try to work miracles into them so often.
Posted inLeaving Religion
Testimonies: Why false stories backfire spectacularly
Reading Time: 11 minutes With the base cunning of a narcissist, Biff recognized — probably very quickly — that boring testimonies don’t exactly open doors in evangelicalism.
Posted inReligious News
‘Bless Every Home:’ Personal Evangelism Done Super-Creepy
Reading Time: 10 minutes On the way minus side, this initiative could result in someone getting stalked. But there is at least a plus side: The flocks still hate personal evangelism. An app that prods and pushes them to do stuff won’t make them like it more.
Posted inLeaving Religion
Barna Group Sure Hopes Gen Z Can Rescue Evangelicalism
Reading Time: 9 minutes Evangelical leaders’ attention was always fated to shift from Millennials to Gen Z. Millennials utterly failed to secure a turnaround in the tribe’s fortunes. So now those leaders look to Gen Z to save their bacon.
Posted inCulture
Intentional Ministries: When Congregations Are Pastors’ Worst Problem
Reading Time: 8 minutes The natural inclinations of awful people tend to be awful. And such people can make an innocent visit to a neighborhood church into a horror story those guests will remember for years.
Posted inGeneral
Christianese 101: Translating Evangelists’ Success Stories
Reading Time: 10 minutes Hi and welcome back! Sometimes, it’s fun to reveal the real meaning of all the Christianese that evangelicals use. Because oh, they use a lot of it. And the more Christianese you see in use, the less the Christians involved have to say that’s real and true. So when I say that evangelism might just be the […]
Posted inReligion
Manga Messiah: Another Bait and Switch Evangelism Attempt in Japan
Reading Time: 10 minutes Out of everywhere evangelicals seek to make sales, Japan might be one of their most resistant evangelism markets. But three dishonest evangelical couples have recently decided to use some beloved Japanese art forms to lure in unsuspecting marks: cosplay, fake collectibles, and a manga-style comic book called Manga Messiah.