Barneyisfat

I might have already posted about this experience, and these thoughts might be review - but this thought has been in my head all week.

My friend Valya is on the cutting edge of all things hip in our Eastern European city of Lviv, Ukraine.  She runs an international film festival, her mother lives in Italy, and she could wear a trash bag on her head for only a day or two before every young person in the city was doing it.  She always knows of the new restaurant in the basement of a soviet block building in a suburb that has the most amazing food, or some new art exhibit at some abandoned house, or some "post-modern alternative experiential performance piece - with free vegan cookies" to attend.

The last item on that list is in quotation marks because that is how it was advertised.  They advertised on Facebook a "post-modern alternative experiential performance piece."  I knew that I couldn't miss that.  So Valya and I trecked to the "raw space" where they would perform their "post-modern alternative experiential performance piece" and serve their vegan, whole food, raw, locally sourced cookies.

I would like to be quite clear, I'm really down with this crowd.  While I think they could let go of the pretentious attitude and just serve fruit instead of trying to change people's culinary attitudes, I like their vegan crumb cakes and I'm glad that they enjoy expressing themselves.

We found our place behind the white girl with dread-locks and my old neighbor who smokes a lot of pot.

The performance piece began.  It was called masks.  It was about how people wear masks.  At the end, everyone had a piece of paper to open up that ended up in the shape of a mask - and a message of refusing masks was written on it.  The final words were, "Take off your masks.  Everyone, take them off before you die!"  And then the main character died - and the moth characters went into their cocoons.  Again, not for everyone - but I enjoyed it.

What struck me most, and what stays with me to this day - is that, essentially, this was a mix between an outreach event and a revival service.  Just for non-conformists instead of Christians.   They hit the formula perfectly - and they made the exact same mistake that we make.

When you advertise a "post-modern alternative experiential performance piece" you attract a certain group of people.  When your pull is "free vegan cookies" you push a lot of people out of the way.  You attract a certain group of people - people just like yourself - and then you encourage them to become more like you.

When churches advertise a revival they attract a certain group of people - Christians!  When your pull is that "this is an outreach event" you push a lot of people out of the way.

And I can't express how many revivals, outreach events, youth programs, Christian concerts, Revelation based plays, and worship services I have attended which did this exact thing.  They planned an event with the timbre and tone of outreach, evangelism, and faith-sharing; and then they advertised in such a way to ensure that only Christians would show up and then finished off by exhorting them to become Christians.

I was invited by a co-worker to attend revival services at the Southern Baptist church where her husband was pastor.  She was nice, and while theologically she believed there was a warm spot in hell for liberals and Methodists in her heart she knew that I was also a believer and passionately loved Jesus.  I had seen fliers up all over town for the event, and I decided to go.  I was the only person who wasn't a regular attender who came to the revival service during the week.  It was the last night, and as I had never been to such a service I was not aware that showing up unshaven and looking homeless - which was my look at the time - was a clear sign that I was not saved.  After we had sung the lines "Jesus is calling, Oh sinner, come home" forty-three times I quietly whispered to my co-worker that she could tell her husband that I was already saved.  We only sang it twice more before he decided to believe me.    

We are getting better at preaching to the choir.  We're getting worse at preaching to those who need to hear.        

As long as we insist on using the media which worked in the 1940s we will never be heard by people who live today.  Advertising a revival service at a church is no longer the pull for visitors that it once was.  It's easy to confuse the media and the message and we assume that "they" don't want to hear it anymore.

Which brings me back to my friend Valya.  She grew a lot in her faith while she was a student - and she attributes a lot of that to her time with the Pilgrims inter-confessional student ministry operated by the United Methodist Church.  She hasn't found her place in our United Methodist community yet, but as she moves in her circles of hipsters, non-conformists, artists, and outcasts; she caries her faith with her.  She share her faith openly and transparently.  The medium of our message is the same today as it was in the first century.  The medium is transformed disciples transforming the world.

This is what we advertise.  This is what we invite people to witness and join us for.