Brand Loyalty

this is something i have been mulling over in me head for sometime now: the idea of "Brand Loyalty" in the church. i have waited to write anything about it here because i haven't really formulated it all out in my head, its still a fragmented idea. however, i thought it would be ok to simply lay out the general idea for you guys and you can add to it if you want.... i know i will be adding/subtracting to it as i think more about it.

anyway, as i said above, i have been thinking about this for a while. here is a bare-bones, Readers Digest version of what i see: people (both worshipers and church staff) see the specific church they attend as a specific brand of a product (worship or church). as a result they have certain Brand Loyalty to their specific brand that they consume and see all other brands of the same product as a rival to be competed against. if they see someone decide to "consume another brand" (go to a different worship service at a different church), they see that person as be a traitor to their brand. you see this in the market all the time: if someone, say, consumes the same breakfast cereal for years on end, they both feel a strange connection to others who consume the same breakfast cereal as them and see it as a huge deal to decide to change brands and consume another breakfast cereal; so it is in the church. in my time here, i have chosen, on one occasion, to check out an alt.worship service here in London on a sunday evening, instead of attending our sunday evening worship service. when certain people heard about it, especially certain members of the leadership, they frowned a bit, being utterly confused as to why i would want/need to go to a different worship service; isn't ours all i would need? i could sense an air of awkwardness when i would talk to my fellow staff about it, as if i had betrayed them somehow and was parading it around, "shouldn't he know that what he did was wrong, going behind our backs to worship God at another place?"

here's where i see the problem in this mode of thinking/acting (to continue the analogy of Brand Loyalty): each individual church is not a separate brand, demanding strict Brand Loyalty of it's worshippers, to the exclusion of full support of all other members of the Body. instead, i see the Worldwide Church of Jesus as the brand to be loyal to and each individual church is simply a different product within the large brand of the Church. for instance, if someone decides to buy a Pepsi instead of a Mountain Dew, they are supporting different products, but still showing Brand Loyalty to PepsiCo. if i decide to go to Vaux on a sunday evening instead of the Ascension, i am not being a traitor to the brand, i am still showing brand loyalty to the Worldwide Church of Jesus. i think if we adopted this mindset, especially those in leadership roles at each church, we would be in a position to experience a real sense of unity and connection with the wider Church. i think we would be more inclined to support, both with resources (finances, people, space) and with prayer/cooperation, other churches in the local area/world that are seeking to lift of Christ and love people. walls would be torn down because we would realize we are all "working" for the same Brand, if something benefits one specific church, it benefits the Worldwide Church of Jesus. we are all connected and we are all one body, ONE BODY. lets try and change our thinking about this and start operating as Christ intended for us to operate: as one family, one body. there is only one brand to be loyal to: the Worldwide Church of Jesus.

well, there it is. sorry if its sort of fragmented, i am still trying work out in stunning clarity what i am exactly trying to say about what i see in the church today in relation to this. it feels good, though, to at least get it out of my head and into words. as i said before, i will continue to think about this idea and post anything new i come up with. feel free to post any comments you have as a result of this, i am interested in hearing what you guys think about this idea.