United Methodists plan campaign to 'rethink church'

By Susan Passi-Klaus*

The Rev. Larry Hollon, top staff executive of United Methodist Communications, addresses the Commission on Communication in Nashville, Tenn. At right is the Rev. Mark Conard, a commissioner from Hutchinson, Kan. UMNS photos by Ronny Perry.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS)-What if church wasn't just a place where people spend an hour on Sundays? What if there wasn't just one door into the church but 10,000?

And what if we began thinking about "church" as a verb instead of a noun?

The United Methodist Church is going to pose those questions and others when it rolls out a new media campaign in 2009 aimed at getting people to "Rethink Church." The awareness campaign's launch will coincide with World Malaria Day, April 25.

"In the next few years, we will seek to encourage a global spiritual dialogue," said the Rev. Larry Hollon, top staff executive of United Methodist Communications. "It will ask us to rethink church. We will ask, 'What if church were a verb and not a noun?'"

Hollon and his staff presented the "Rethink Church" awareness campaign to the agency's commission during a Sept. 25-27 meeting in Nashville. The Commission on Communication oversees United Methodist Communications, which is directing the campaign.

"What we're going to try and get across is the idea that 'church' doesn't just happen on Sundays, and 'church' isn't just a building," said Kerry Graham, president of Nashville-based Bohan Advertising/Marketing, which developed the "Rethink Church" campaign.

Attracting more people
The campaign is designed to redefine church as a 365-days-a-year experience where people seeking a church community can become involved at various levels - many of them non-traditional - such as volunteering with groups outside the church building and even through making online connections.

Graham suggests that the church population, institution and hierarchy will need to understand and embrace the idea that it is OK for "church" to start out as day care, a youth-group ski trip, a men's basketball league or something that solves a secular need, such as Habitat for Humanity.

"Whatever entry point is comfortable for someone who may find the idea of entering church daunting, an act of courage or a moment of high vulnerability - that's what church needs to be," he said.

United Methodists are working to bring three generations into the life of the church: baby boomers, post-moderns (also known as Gen X) and millennials (Mosaic or Gen Y). The target audience for the new focus will be 18- to 34-year-olds. With issues related to church relevance, negative impressions of Christians and opportunities for involving young people, these generations have been difficult to engage in mainline church involvement. Church officials expect the campaign to have a positive impact with other age groups as well.

Hollon told commissioners that the church's mission statement, to "make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world," is the foundation for United Methodist Communications' work. He also noted that the new campaign will use language that resonates with the life concerns of people who aren't familiar with the church.

Competing for 'mind space'
Rethinking church and denominational marketing calls for an ability to tell the church's stories in "many, many different ways, through many media and with different audiences," Hollon told commission members.

Although traditional marketing expressions such as television commercials, magazine advertisements and billboards will anchor the campaign, the "Rethink Church" message also will be delivered in other ways. Cutting-edge communication tools will include everything from United Methodist iTunes and text messaging to YouTube Methodist channels and bumper stickers. The question for campaign architects becomes, "How do we communicate faith in a complex, media-saturated world?"

"We face a multiplicity of media and competition for 'mind space,'" Hollon said. "We are living through changes in lifestyle and values in post-modern, post-Christian culture - changes that are continuous and require adaptation and the ability to turn on a dime."

"Rethink Church" will serve as a creative addendum to the campaign "Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors." The church has carried out the campaign on television, radio, billboards and other media for the past eight years.

General Conference, the legislative assembly of The United Methodist Church, approved approximately $20 million in funding for United Methodist Communications for advertising and media campaign work for the next four years. The "Rethink Church" campaign's cost is not yet known, and some funding for it may come from other United Methodist Communications funds.

Challenging the church
The Commission on Communication was "very enthusiastic" about the general concept for "Rethink Church," said Bishop Sally Dyck, commission president, in a telephone interview after the meeting.

The bishop, who leads The United Methodist Church's Minnesota Area, has supported since its inception the campaign for "Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors." She likes the fact that it offers churches training in radical hospitality, which is important to revitalizing congregations and starting new ones, she said. The campaign needs to continue, she said.

"Rethink Church, I think, really bumps it up to another level, and it's actually a level that I have wanted our denomination to work on," Dyck said. "…Rethink Church is going to challenge every local church to think about what the meaning and purpose of church is."

A lot of churches define their meaning and purpose in terms of fellowship and have "sacrificed evangelism on the altar of fellowship," she said.

"Rethink Church" will also challenge members to think about how they live out church every day, in all aspects of life. "It really goes from just receiving the gospel in kind of a passive way to …living that gospel out in the world," the bishop said. "It's a challenge to not only believe but to act and to live."

The campaign will have a "wonderful challenge and opportunity for the existing church," but it will also invite people who have been disappointed with the church or even hurt by it to rethink and reconsider what church is really about, she said.

Raising awareness
As the campaign is developed, United Methodist Communications will be seeking comments on the concept from other leaders around the church, including bishops, general agency executives, pastors and theologians.

"Rethink Church" is envisioned as more than just a media campaign or awareness campaign, developers say. The goal is for it to become a movement, with results measured in terms of lives touched and transformed, according to United Methodist Communications staff. Those measures are being developed, but traffic on a future Web site for the campaign will be one indicator.

"When we started 'Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors,' The United Methodist Church was indistinguishable from most other mainline denominations," Hollon told the commissioners. "In fact, someone called us a 'generic' denomination."

The original campaign, launched in September 2001, raised U.S. awareness of the church from 14 percent to 30 percent, according to Hollon. He said 96 percent of those surveyed by Gallup last March now have a positive or neutral view of The United Methodist Church.

The national search for a new advertising agency of record began in late 2007. United Methodist Communications received about a dozen proposals from agencies across the United States and narrowed the contenders to four.

"The Bohan Agency was far away better prepared and better versed in what we are trying to accomplish than any of the others," Hollon said. "They took what we had and built on the last eight years to take us to a whole different place."

*Passi-Klaus is the marketing associate with United Methodist Communications.