Feature
Repackaging Jesus
by Tim Watkin
Churches around the country are changing, diversifying and adopting marketing practices in order to attract new and particularly younger members.
Among the unholy trinity of work deadlines, Christmas shopping and holiday planning, December is one of the few times of year that non-churchgoers consider catching a church service. Whether you’re looking for some meaning among the mall-trawls and mistletoe, wanting to give your kids a bit of baby Jesus and all that tradition, or after just a few minutes’ peace, you might be shopping for a church about now, alongside the stocking fillers.
Just like the retailers, the churches are chasing your business. They, too, have been spending on their marketing and promotions and organising some special deals. This is a prime time for them to give you a taste of their product or, to steal from the marketer’s phrase book, to “gain trial”.
So, if you’re expecting what Rev Dr Steve Taylor at Opawa Baptist Church in Christchurch calls “a Mr Bean experience” – a mumbled sermon and badly sung ancient hymns, with people dozing off around you – think again. If you haven’t darkened the door of a church for a few years, you might be surprised to learn just how much churches up and down the country have changed and diversified. A church these days might begin by renting a school hall, then buy a warehouse where hundreds or thousands gather to hear rock bands and watch audio-visual displays. But, in truth, that’s just one of many products on the market. There seem to be as many types of church as there are Barbies.
Opawa Baptist have got nine truck containers parked outside their church, each with a different art display. One’s full of stick men behind barbed wire, inviting you to spare a thought for the people you know who feel trapped and others suffering in the Third World. Another has shoebox dioramas done by children from the local school, after Taylor went along to talk about the Christmas story.
“Like a lot of churches these days, the whole use of multi-media and the arts are important to us,” Taylor says. “Behind that lies a desire to be a lot more connective with people outside the walls of the church. We try to get alongside people.”
Last year, Opawa Baptist’s “Christmas Journey” was through hay bales and attracted around 1000 people.
A rare example of innovation? Maybe 10 years ago. But especially at times of peak flow, this is becoming the norm for churches as they seek to gain the attention and interest of the many tens of thousands of New Zealanders who know nothing of church life.
One of the buzz-phrases in Christian circles these days is finding “new ways to be church”.
Never is that more obvious than at Christmas, as the Church seeks to reclaim its most celebratory festival. At the start of the month, Christian City Church in central Auckland took its weekly Primal meetings, usually held across eight suburbs, out to the skate parks of the city and got about 2000 young people involved. On Christmas Eve, the church will be joining other central city churches at the 3000-seat Beaumont Centre, where the “service” will be headlined by bands and high-profile Christian speaker Ian Grant, and MCed by TV3’s Petra Bagust.
It’s not just the Pentecostals that are ditching the “same-old”. Even in the typically conservative Presbyterian churches of the even more conservative Eastern suburbs of Auckland, you’ll find a range of “products” that would have been largely unknown a generation ago.
At Somervell Presbyterian in Remuera, the traditional midnight mass has been put to sleep. Instead, a children-focused service is held at 6.00pm, where the congregation will create an “instant nativity play”, children will make Christmas decorations and minister Brett Johnstone will throw lollies.
“The kids love it,” he says.
Towards the sea, at Kohimarama Presbyterian, a temporary pond is being built where the pews used to be. You can float a candle in memory of those who won’t be with you at Christmas, due to distance or death, and around the pond are a series of artistic reflections on contemporary New Zealand poetry, from Lauris Edmond to the “12 days of Christmas”-style Pukeko in a Punga Tree.
“As a woman at church was saying the other day, art and symbol are languages of the day,” says Rev Richard Ward. “We’re trying to move beyond carols and Santa and find new ways of talking about Christmas.”
Further east at St Columba in Botany Downs, the Christmas Eve service is a pyjama party. The church upped sticks from its old site in Pakuranga to plant itself among new subdivisions and has marketed itself heavily, insisting that its image is as professional as the chain stores in the giant Botany Downs shopping centre nearby.
The sign outside the church last week read: “What do I have to do to get your attention? Put an ad in the newspaper? Signed God.”
It’s indicative of how churches all over the country are waving their arms, trying to get your attention; although newspaper ads are positively old hat. Try glossy flyers, websites, text campaigns, catchy billboards and e-ministers.
“It’s a big push away from the idea that church is boring,” says Rev Reuben Hardie. “People are used to coming to church to sing some hymns and listen, but it’s a much more complete package these days.”
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