What you win them with...

This flyer was stuffed in my front door this morning.

It may not be completely clear in the pictures, but it is a flyer advertising a competition at a local church to win a gameboy. It's not clear if this is for children or anyone, but the idea is that if you show up and do well in the competition, you will win a video game. My favorite part is where it says you get 10 points for wearing church clothes!

I do have a point (besides just thrashing on the flyer). This is what people who equate numbers of attenders with church success call a "growth engine". A growth engine is an event or series of programs designed to get people in the door of a church in hopes of netting new attenders, and therefore, new Christians. I have two problems with growth engines (besides the silly corporate terminology birthed out of businesses trying to sell stuff):

1) "What you win them with is what you win them to" Ironically, I think I got that phrase from the same organization that taught me about growth engines. The idea (in a church context) is that the methods you reach people with are the same things they will look to later for their continued spiritual growth. In this case, people who show up to win a gamebooy with their church clothes (10 points) and their neighbor (30 points) are going to see church as a competition. How do you explain to "Jonny Gameboy" that salvation is a free gift through Jesus and we don't have to accumulate points to win his grace? Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't have the world's largest banana split at Sunday School. All I'm saying is that is not a good evangelism tool.

2) My second problem with this growth engine tactic is that, besides the name of the church (which I tried to black out), you wouldn't know that this is a church event. There is nothing on this flyer indicating the ultimate purpose for getting these kids to show up, which to me, is and underhanded and basically dishonest way of getting people to church. This church, in my opinion, has shown their greatest priority to be getting people to show up, followed closely by illustrating the church as a place to earn points for great prizes, and somewhere after all that (my guess is at the end of the campaign when the kids will get bonus points for bringing their parents to church) Jesus.

This may seem petty and mean to you. You might be thinking that I am a bitter and jealous guy (probably some disgruntled pastor who can't get more than 30 people to show up to his worship services). You might think I'm being a little hard on a church who is just trying to reach out to their community. Well, Jesus' harshest words always seemed to be reserved for church people who's priorities were out of whack, and somehow, Jesus managed to have kids all over him and, as far as I know, never gave away a gameboy in his life. It seems to me that his authentic love for them was somehow attractive--to everyone.