MattCleaver.com

Reimagining Youth Ministry

  • Home
  • Youth Ministry has Failed
  • Best Youth Ministry Books
  • Church Websites
  • Contact Me

The ELCA’s Brand Campaign

Last Updated April 7, 2009 by Matt 1 Comment

Last week the ELCA announced the launch of a brand campaign, which immediately caught my attention. You can view all of the ads that the ELCA will be running in various television, print, outdoor, and online advertisements by clicking here. I must say that as far as church advertisements go, these are actually pretty good. The advertisements are quite kerygmatic in nature, proclaiming the work being done in the ELCA rather than trying to entice people to join our churches. If I were going to advertise a church, I would likely take a similar approach. Of course, the question becomes whether I would advertise at all.

However, there were some interesting comments made in the press release regarding this brand campaign:

The purpose of the ELCA brand campaign is to grow awareness of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and inspire members to invite others to a worship service.

We could debate whether “growing awareness” has anything to do with evangelism or mission, but I really caught on to the assertion that these advertisements were meant to “inspire members to invite others to a worship service.” The reason that I am so intrigued by this is because the goal is completely separated from the means. The brand campaign focuses solely on the work being done by the ELCA on behalf of God (“Gods work. Our hands.”): feeding the homeless, training literacy to African women, providing medical training, rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina. How this missional emphasis in the advertisements would inspire regular members to invite people to sit in a sanctuary and listen to a sermon and sing to an organ is beyond me. Are we still caught in the mindset that inviting people to a worship service is what is meant when Jesus said, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations”?

I would have rather seen the money spent on these advertisements go towards grants that inspire and facilitate the kind of missional acts of service that are highlighted in the campaign. Churches who can barely afford to pay a pastor might be able to feed the hungry in their town, to train people in a trade, or to offer financial counseling and resources in these economic times. Would that not also grow awareness of the ELCA and inspire people to serve, love, and sacrifice for one another?

Filed Under: Ecclesiology Tagged With: brand campaign, elca, missional

About Matt

Matt Cleaver has written since 2004 on youth ministry, theology, and the church. His blog was ranked by Youth Specialties as a Top 20 Youth Ministry Blog. Click here for Matt's list of the Best Youth Ministry Books.

Comments

  1. Brit Windel says

    February 11, 2011 at 11:55 am

    Just checked those out. They are very good and high quality. Not something I’m used to seeing 🙂

    I agree about the money could have been spent wiser, like educating other congregations how to share hope and dignity among their community and get their congregation excited and on fire about sharing and being that light to others.

    ps. love the look of the new website 🙂

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Best Youth Ministry Books

These are the books that will completely change the way you think about youth ministry, for the better. Links are to my reviews of each book.

Teen 2.0 by Robert Epstein

A psychologist makes you question every assumption you have about adolescence.

Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry by Andrew Root

Why build relationships? Root’s answer will surprise you.

Best Youth Ministry Books: Youth Ministry 3.0 by Mark Ostreicher

Yesterday I finally read Youth Ministry 3.0 by Mark Ostreicher, and since I’m one of the latecomers to the conversation I won’t summarize the book too much. Marko has linked to tons of reviews on his blog if you are interested in more in-depth summaries. If you are fairly in-tune with a lot of the […]

Best Youth Ministry Books: Postmodern Youth Ministry

Postmodern Youth Ministry by Tony Jones is the book I would recommend to youth ministers if they could just read one youth ministry book. I first read the book in my Foundations and Practices of Youth Ministry class at John Brown University. After the preface to the book there is a page titled, “The Day […]

You can find my new blog on philosophy and teaching at MattCleaver.com

Search

Archives

Categories

  • Best Youth Ministry Books (4)
  • Blogging (42)
  • Blogroll (1)
  • Book Reviews (17)
  • Books (32)
  • Christianity (50)
  • Ecclesiology (52)
  • emerging church (13)
  • Featured (8)
  • Links (27)
  • Ministry (4)
  • Neo-Youth Ministry (8)
  • News (25)
  • Personal (69)
  • Podcast (4)
  • Quotes (14)
  • Random (43)
  • Seminary (16)
  • Theology (48)
  • Uncategorized (50)
  • Websites (15)
  • WordPress (1)
  • Youth Ministry (149)

Copyright © 2023 · News Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in