Church is like a bowl of salad. This (wacky) analogy comes from Scot McKnight in his book, A Fellowship of Differents: Showing the World God’s Design for Life Together. As a creative agency for mission-driven people, we tend to work with a lot of church leaders and communications teams. And, in case you hadn’t noticed, diversity and inclusion tend to be hot topics, both inside and outside of the church. As professionals whose goal is to merge marketing principles and Biblical wisdom, we figured that both understanding Biblical diversity in the church for ourselves and being able to talk about it with other people is vital. Today we wanted to share a few things we’re learning along the way.
So, let’s get back to salad. According to McKnight, there are three ways to eat one—the American Way, the Weird Way, and the Right Way. The American Way is to fill a bowl with iceberg and smother it in dressing (probably ranch). The Weird Way is to separate your salad toppings to eat individually, picking and choosing with each bite. The Right Way? Gather great ingredients and mix ‘em all together with a drizzle of olive oil to bring out the flavor of each ingredient. Sometimes our churches skew true diversity either by smothering everyone in bland alikeness or dividing everyone up into alike groups, but McKnight says the church should be like a good salad, eaten the right way. While this analogy puts a slightly humorous spin on the ways we haven’t quite reached the goal, let’s talk about Biblical diversity in the church—the way it was always meant to be.
The technology and globalization of the past few hundred years has connected the once distant corners of our world. And while our newborn multicultural globe brings wonderful opportunities like new ways of understanding the world, it can be easy to think we’re supporting diversity merely by trying new takeout food and calling it a day. Anything more can make us aware of how complex culture really is. It can feel a lot like moving in with an odd college roommate—some people just do things differently. So, it’s no wonder that “diversity” and “inclusion” have become hot topics in our culture and in the American church as we all try to learn how to live well together.
While some churches and Christian movements have felt the need to reactively address these cultural questions, the Biblical vision of the family of God was always intended to be a fellowship of many races, cultures, classes, and genders. Why? Well—at the risk of oversimplifying an answer people have written whole books about—it’s probably because the Bible paints a picture of God’s glory being so big and wonderful that it can’t be contained in one people group (Psalm 96:3-4). But, as you know, we’re a team of marketers and creatives, not scholars and Bible teachers. For a more detailed look at this, Desiring God has a great article called Why Christians Love Diversity.
Going back to the salad guy—McKnight says, “God has designed the church…to be a fellowship of difference and differents. It is a mixture of people from all across the map and spectrum…the church is God’s world-changing experience of bringing unlikes and differents to the table to share life with one another as a new kind of family” (McKnight, 2014, p. 16). We’re God’s show-and-tell for life in the family of God.
Our creative agency works with a lot of mission-driven people. But specifically when it comes to marketing churches, some areas can be even trickier to navigate than marketing for faith-based nonprofits or businesses. We’re still learning too, but here are some lessons we’ve picked up along the way.
If you’ve ever taken a class, browsed a blog, or even barely overheard a conversation related to marketing, there’s one thing you can’t miss—you’ve got to know your audience. Once you know them and their needs, you can relentlessly craft and refine an effective message, specifically for them. But, if there was one place not to exclude or favor groups of people, it might be at church (cue James 2). How do you tailor a message for one audience without it being at another’s expense?”
Say, for example, that you sell apple sauce. Whether you’re pitching it to moms with young kids or to medical offices whose patients need soft food, you’ll probably still have better luck than if you were to sell it to senior-level corporate managers. But news flash—the message of Jesus is inherently different from apple sauce. It’s not a product to sell for certain needs; it’s a message to spread for universal needs.
But, let’s get practical. Here are two ways as a church to segment your audience for more intentional reach. The first is through geography. Try drawing a certain-mile radius around your church building. Instead of blindly targeting a group based on arbitrary demographic descriptions, spend some time researching your community—not the people just like you in your own neighborhood, but your community as a whole. Knowing the racial, cultural, class, and gender makeup of the people immediately surrounding your church isn’t meant to divide them all up, but to gain a clearer picture of the people you serve and take intentional steps towards the people who might not naturally be drawn to your church.
The second way is through psychographics—or mentalities. Many for-profit companies even combine this approach with demographic segmentation, the most famous company being Apple. This can help as you frame the story of Jesus.
While many have started pursuing Biblical diversity in the church, it’s important to ask the question “why?” When it’s merely out of a response to cultural demands for equality, this pursuit gets oversimplified, answering only specific hot button issues of race. They may roll out the proverbial red carpet for some but countless others silently slip through the cracks because they don’t fit the targeted diversity demographic. Scot McKnight explains that Biblical diversity in the church cannot be measured merely by what is on the outside of their people; rather, it is seen by “how many invisible people become visible to those not like them.” (p. 20) In our efforts to “resolve” one issue, we unknowingly stopped welcoming the truly invisible in our churches. On the other hand, a true pursuit of diversity is based out of God’s original plan for his church—a fellowship of differents gathered as the family of God.
Most of us have heard the woes of “cultural relevance” in the church. But how do we account for very real differences within our churches?
All people want stories. Stories have a way of captivating us because we want a narrative we can understand and live inside of. We want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. But the stories we tell about God and about ourselves deeply influence the people we draw to our churches. For two extreme examples, think of how differently Westboro Baptist Church and The He Gets Us Campaign would describe God. These two groups tend to draw vastly different audiences.
We should consider the relevance of cultural relevance. In his insightful article, Karl Vaters shares a new perspective on the topic. He says, “So maybe instead of asking ‘what’s cool?’, ‘what’s relevant?’ or even ‘what’s new?’ our churches ought to be asking people ‘what reality are you living in?’ and ‘what better reality does Jesus have for you?’ The message we share should never change, but meeting people where they’re at starts with the ways we communicate the Gospel.
For our team, that’s what it’s all about. Struggling to meet people where th
