Tim Keller on Publicity and Redeemer Church

This past week Desiring God had their annual conference (which you can find summaries of at Tim Challies blog just do a search on DG06 and there should be a bunch of posts summarizing the sessions), and many of us have been watching their promo videos which you can find at the DG website.  One video I found particularly intriguing was the one where Tim Keller explained why he works very hard to not publicize his church.  Here's the video from YouTube and if you are interested in a few of my own thoughts on this you can keep reading into the post continuation.

It seems to be self-evident these days that churches need to advertise and make use of every available means of getting their message out. Yet, Keller doesn't want to advertise because he seems to be afraid of attracting the wrong kind of people - Christian tourists.  Keller doesn't want them, he wants non-Christians to come to his church.  Now, I say he doesn't want them, I am sure he welcomes Christians who come to the church but he wants those who are there for the sake of being missional, not just for hopping on a bandwagon.  He acknowledges that Redeemer is the kind of church where they can't help getting the tourists, but he is really aiming for non-Christians.

So, as usual, this kicked my brain into gear in several disjointed ways and here are some random thoughts which may or may not hang together.

1. What Keller seems to be implying here is that advertising, if effective at all, is effective in attracting Christian tourists, not non-Christians or missional Christians.  I know I get a steady stream of hip and cool postcards that I can use to attract visitors to my church, but it occurs to me that the missionally minded Christians probably don't need that kind of enticement and that non-Christians probably won't find those things to be as cool as we often do.

2. Which also reminds me that Christians and non-Christians have different expectations when they go to a church.  Someone once pointed out to me that Christians like to be fussed over when they visit a church.  So, they like it when the pastor singles them out either through having them stand or having them sit while everyone else stands.  But non-Christians find this off-putting and are more likely to run if they are singled out.

3. Those first two items are just from things I have heard or are my impressions - i don't really have much to back them up with - I am wondering if anyone out there has a different experience or can think of instances where non-Christians have responded well to advertising or being fussed over at church.

4. Keller mentions that only about 1/3 of the folks at Redeemer are really on board with the missional stuff, so the numbers we hear are skewed.  That ought to make those who revere Redeemer feel better about their own church - my guess is that this is about the same ratio you would find in most churches.

5. There is one little biblical/theological point that this raises, at least for me, and that is regarding the invisibility of the kingdom.

Points 1-4 above are just observations and pragmatic considerations, but I think Keller's words point to something from the gospels that is often overlooked - the invisible nature of the kingdom.

For example, in Matthew 13:31-33:

^31 He told them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. ^32 Though it is the smallest of all your seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and perch in its branches.” 

^33 He told them still another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough.” 

 

The Holy Bible  : New International Version. 1996, c1984 . Zondervan: Grand Rapids

In both of those cases, the first step in the exansion of the kingdom is to hide it, to bury it.  The seed has to get buried before it can grow.  The yeast gets absorbed into the flour, it disappears into the flour and does it's work in a hidden fashion.

Also, you have these weird incidents in the gospels where Jesus tells people not to tell anyone what He has done for them - Matthew 8:4, 9:30, and Luke 8:56.   In Matthew 6:1-18 we are forbidden from performing our religious deeds to be seen by men. Also, in John 7:1-10 there is that instance where Jesus brothers urge Him to go to the feast because, if He is a public figure, He ought to do things publicly.  And Jesus refuses, it is not the right time for Him to go public.

On other side of these verses we can point to many instances where Paul preached the gospel publicly and of course there is Matthew 5:14-16, which says that we are the light of the world. 

I think there are a couple of ways forward in thinking about these different kinds of verses.  One is to consider that some of the exhortations in the gospels "not to tell anyone" were given for specific times and places which don't apply across all times and places.  But another avenue for dealing with these passages is to note that Jesus' kingdom is not going to advance in wordly ways.  It would have been worldly to form the Christians into a political party that would have challenged Rome head on, it would have been worldly to attempt to use military force in advancing the kingdom.  It would have been worldly to attempt to advance the kingdom through pomp and circumstance.  In other words, though the kingdom will have a public face, it will advance in a much quieter fashion than other kingdoms advance.

 

Jesus gives us a picture that the kingdom advances in this world through the preaching of the gospel, and through love and good deeds.  Thus, I think we can read these passages on invisibility as simply saying that we don't try to advance the kingdom the way the world does.  That light that shines from the city on the hill is not so much the PR campaign that came from the city planners, it is the preaching of the gospel, and the witnessing and love and good deeds of the Christians.

I don't think any of this rules out all use of advertising.  For instance, I see nothing wrong with having a yellow pages ad, or with putting a notice in the religion section of the newspaper, and I think that if funds are available there are occasions when it may be appropriate to use some of the tools from the Outreach Marketing type folks.  But we can't rely on that kind of stuff to "get the world out."  We need to rely on faithful preaching, witnessing and love and good deeds.

Related Tags: Religion, Theology, Faith, Christian, Christianity, Church, Church Marketing, Tim Keller, Desiring God Conference, Redeemer Presbyterian

Comments

[Rey]

It's interesting because some churches approach Gospel outreach as investing in better quality tracts and canvasing a three block area with paper and never opening their mouths to preach the gospel. Not saying that tracts are wrong, but its a heavy reliance on the thing when it's just cold handing out of glossy paper.

[Mark Lauterbach]

Excellent post brother

Over years I have found that Christian "tourists" tend to overrun good things in churches and squeeze out the guest. I think Keller is on to something and Rdeemer has a clear vision and gifiting in this regard.

[Catez]

David,
I know when I wasn't a Christian I was invited to some church meetings. I didn't want to be fussed over, and being honest I didn't give a toss about meeting the pastor - that is more of a Christian thing I agree. But it was nice if one or two people I didn't know said hello.

On the other side of the coin, I notice the same with non-Christians who might turn up at church - they like to have a brief interaction with some of the people, and at least know they are welcomed. I don't think they are into a being officially greeted - but an informal hello. I agree that they don't like to be overwhelmed for the most part because they are assesing it all and also may feel shy.

Personality does come into it. From my own experience, people are more receptive to church if they already know a Christian and are comfortable with them. I don't invite folk to church services much actually - unless they seem interested. I mean it doesn't have to be about getting some-one to church, but at the same time church can give people an idea of our community. Having said that, how we interact outside of church can give non-Christian friends and neighbours an idea of our community too.
Just some thoughts off the cuff.

[Agkyra]

I agree that a modest amount and style of advertising can be very helpful. Yellow pages ads, for instance, are more directed advertisements, because only people who are looking for a church--and probably a specific kind of church--will come across them. More broadly distributed advertisements, like direct mail, smack too much of our consumer culture to me. A church is not a product or service that we need to cultivate a market for.

What is the church? The saints of God. What is a church service? The saints of God coming together to worship him and have fellowship with each other. Where do non-Christians fit into that? Only on the periphery. The service is not about non-Christians, and it never should be. Else you have a revival meeting. Let them come, by all means! But more importantly, let us go out to them so that when they first come to the church it will be to worship with their new brothers and sisters.

[Jeremy Pierce]

Extroverted Christians might like to be singled out, but if I visit a church and they do something like that I tend to get really turned off. My congregation allows people to introduce themselves if they feel comfortable doing so but puts no pressure on them. The last time I visited somewhere that singled me out as a visitor, I left thinking not one good thing about the church. It's completely counterproductive.

I have, however, seen Christians complain that no one talks to them after a service. While that's a real problem in a congregation, it shows you the misplaced priorities of the people who are complaining. Our primary purpose in attending a service is to serve God in that congregation, not to have our needs met. Other people may have a responsibility to see to it that our needs are met, but our responsibility is not to see to it that they do so or to complain when they don't. It's to see what place we may have to serve others. Given that so many people have that attitude, it's surprising to me that they can complain about others' self-centeredness and insularity. But selfishness breeds selfishness, and so people who are part of the problem continue to complain about the problem.

[Terry]

Jeremy,

David goes out of his way not to make folk like you feel uncomfortable. You would be comfortable if you decided to be a Christian tourist at our humble abode. We talk to ya' if ya' let us one on one. We let ya' go if ya' don't.

Terry

[Terry]

Jeremy,

Make that David goes out of his way to make folks like you feel comfortable. Not, uncomfortable.

Sorry about that.
Terry

[Terry]

By the way, I went to Keller's church when I was in NY. I hope I did not cause a problem.

[Catez]

Jeremy,I think I see what happened here.

I said in part of my comment:
"I didn't want to be fussed over, and being honest I didn't give a toss about meeting the pastor - that is more of a Christian thing I agree."

I meant meeting the pastor is more of a Christian thing - not being fussed over. I suppose I should have split it into two sentences so it was clear. But then I was leaving my thoughts off the top in a comment, not writing a blog post. :)

[Jeremy Pierce]

Catez, I was responding to David's #2 above:

Which also reminds me that Christians and non-Christians have different expectations when they go to a church. Someone once pointed out to me that Christians like to be fussed over when they visit a church. So, they like it when the pastor singles them out either through having them stand or having them sit while everyone else stands. But non-Christians find this off-putting and are more likely to run if they are singled out.