More religious marketing

We had some leaflets through the letterbox this week (nicely wedging the letterbox open when it was below freezing outside!) including this small one-sided leaflet that piqued my interest.

I find religious marketing interesting, and this in particular caught my attention because of the level of knowledge it assumes recipients will have about what it is promoting.

I presume this leaflet was a mass delivery rather than targeted, as it arrived alongside a leaflet for a roofer. Given that, I feel quite comfortable dissecting it because its not as if anyone thought "I know who would be interested in this" and sent it to me.

Also, I'm not mocking the event. If people want to spend 10 hours praying, starting at 8am in the morning on a Saturday, then they are free to do that all day. I'm sure there are worse activities people could spend 10 hours doing.

But having said that, I'm curious about the thought patterns of the people who have paid to have this printed and distributed. What is a 10 Hour Watchman Prayer? Are we supposed to just know that? Who is the Watchman? What is he praying for? There is no clue provided here.

It's teaser marketing. I could Google all this or look at one of the many social media channels included on the leaflet. But there's no call to action to find out more or discover why I should spend 10 hours praying on a Saturday in January.

That's assumption 1 - that I would know what this is all about without needing an explanation. 

Assumption 2 is that I recognise the name Mike Lakoju. Is Mike meant to be a big draw? I feel I'm supposed to recognise his name and think "I want to go an pray for 10 hours with him!" But I have no idea (sorry Mike) and this leaflet gives me no clue why I should have an idea, or even why he is important enough to have his face on the flyer.

Except it says Pst. I interpret that as meaning Pastor, because clearly they didn't have enough space to write the word out in full. However, that's another assumption that people would know that. It's not like 'Rev' being short for Reverend, which I think would be more commonly understood. 

The way it's written it's almost like they're whispering a secret - "Pssst! With Mike Lakoju!" 

There's also a dropped capital letter in the name of the church. Usually St John gets a capital letter on Evangelist, as it's part of his name. (There are other St Johns, like St John the Baptist.) That typo isn't going to influence my decision whether to go and spend 10 hours praying with Pst. Mike (because I wasn't going to go) but it's just another aspect of this marketing that feels less than optimal.

I'm curious how many people will turn up to this event after having the leaflet pushed through their door. (I'm not curious enough to go along to the event, though!) If I was going to predict how many people will come along as a result of this, I'd be surprised at one.

Reviewing this leaflet has been a good exercise in reminding me of good marketing practice. Firstly, identify a target audience. Explain who you are and your CV - why people should make an effort to attend your event. Make it clear what you want people to do and what benefit they will get from it. And include a call to action - in this case a 'come and join us' would do.

The boat of belief and the rocks of reality

I remember my dad telling me that it didn’t really matter if a person was sincere about something, because you could be sincerely wrong. That’s just one of those things that has stuck with me, for more than 30 years.

I think about it every time someone talks about their “beliefs” and how they feel their beliefs should be respected, by which they usually mean not challenged. I also think about it when seeing the sort of things covid-denialists post on social media that subsequently appear on Reddit’s Herman Cain Awards. Confident statements that they are protected by the blood of Jesus, and that they choose to live in faith not in fear. Or propagating misinformation that covid is fake news and part of some planned assault on individual liberties.

The thing is, Sars-Cov2, which causes covid, doesn’t care about a person’s beliefs. What it sees are some nice, warm, unprotected airways that it can take up residence in, and multiply. It’s a virus – and a fascinating virus at that – and it doesn’t go away because people don’t believe in it or because people have rebuked it and invoked a deity’s protection.

One of the cleverest jokes in any Pixar movie is in Inside Out, a movie where the central characters are emotions felt by a girl called Riley. 

When the characters Joy and Sadness are accidentally cut off from the rest of the emotions, they try to make their way back through Riley’s mind to the central control room. They board the ‘train of thought’ accompanied by a character they meet in Riley’s subconscious – Riley’s semi-forgotten imaginary friend Bing-Bong. On the train Joy knocks over crates containing facts and opinions and remarks that they look very similar. Bing-Bong tells her not to bother sorting them out because no-one can tell them apart. (Here's the scene on YouTube)

That’s incredibly astute. It explains covid-denialists, conspiracists, woo-peddlers and religious fundamentalists. They literally cannot tell an objective, demonstrable fact from an unevidenced opinion. Everything has the same weight – a meme off Facebook, through to a talking head on a chat show, through to a peer-reviewed paper published in a reputable journal. And when we factor in confirmation bias, where we are more likely to listen to sources that corroborate our existing beliefs rather than sources that conflict with our beliefs, we can end up adrift in opinions, thinking they are truths.

But the rocks of reality poke through the surface of the sea.

We see this in the multiple posts on the Herman Cain Awards Reddit, where so many people follow the same track. They post covid-denying memes, antivax propaganda, weird claims about conspiracy, then they get ill. Some continue denying the seriousness of their illness right up until they are posting from their ICU bed in hospital, often struggling to spell words correctly because of hypoxia as their oxygen levels plummet and their brains struggle to function. Then their relatives and friends start posting tributes to them.

Their belief boat has been holed by the rocks of reality. And they drown.

What is unusual about the pandemic, is that this is happening on a much larger scale than usual. Most religious people have experienced unanswered prayers, and have girded themselves with all kinds of reasons why people die instead of being healed, but this usually happens occasionally and can be dealt with as one-offs. It isn’t being chronicled the way these covid-deaths are being shown to be oblivious to the effects of prayer.

I come back to what my dad told me. Sincerity is no protection. Being sincerely wrong about covid can mean trusting in an opinion that isn’t going to protect you from reality.

When Jesus says 'So, what?'

This is the provocative title of the session I led in our works prayer time today. Here are my notes...

John 2
Jesus Changes Water to Wine
On the third day a wedding took place at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine was gone, Jesus' mother said to him, "They have no more wine."

"Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied, "My time has not yet come."
His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

Nearby stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, "Fill the jars with water"; so they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, "Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet." And, you know the story, water into wine, everyone got merry, ‘wow! you saved the best to last’ and so on.

What interests me though is Jesus’ response to his mum. In this Bible version he says ‘Dear woman’, but that’s been softened for our fluffy Western sensibilities. In the original Greek he just says:
τι εμοι και σοι γυναι ουπω ηκει η ωρα μου
(I know what you’re thinking. Wow, Jon’s not just handsome, but he knows New Testament Greek as well. What a valuable skill to have in the modern age.)

Literally the Greek says: "What (is that) to you and me, woman?" There doesn't have to be a subject to a sentence in Greek.

Now we soften that and make it ‘dear woman’ and say ‘how does that involve me’, but an equally valid translation would be ‘So, what, woman?’

I like the thought that Jesus turns round and says ‘So, what?’ You know that annoying smile people give you when they say ‘…and what would Jesus do?’ Well he might just say ‘so what?’

What I really love about this story is the authenticity of the little vignette. He’s with his mum who says something disapproving about the party planners and Jesus says ‘look that’s not our problem’ and she then does something that is SO mum-like. She ignores him completely.

Mums do that, don’t they? It doesn’t matter how old you are – Jesus is 30 years old and his mum just completely ignores him. You can imagine it. She says ‘Look, they’ve run out of wine.’ He says ‘So? What’s that got to do with us, woman?’ And she just goes ‘Oh hush’ and calls over the waiter. ‘Hey you yes, you, listen, do whatever he tells you.’ And Jesus is left there thinking ‘What? What are you doing? I just said this wasn’t our problem. Oh for goodness sake…’

It comforts me that Jesus knows every trial and temptation that we face. I think this particular temptation was to drown his mum in a water jar. Okay, maybe not that extreme. But he must have been a bit annoyed. After all, he had said ‘What’s this got to do with me and you?’

‘So what?’ isn’t a particularly caring attitude – not a particularly Christian attitude. But I think there are a few things we can draw out of this response. We don’t get to pick and choose which bit’s of Jesus’ life we get to emulate. Are there any times when we are justified to shrug and say ‘so what?’

Well, yes I think there is.

First off there’s the way Jesus’ mum says ‘they have no more wine’. Now if that was my mum, I’d probably be saying ‘Really, and who’s drunk most of it, mum? Hmmm?’ while looking pointedly at her empty glass. [My Mum reads my blog, but hopefully won't read this bit...]

But what’s in that statement. Is it a criticism? They’ve run out of wine. Ooh, bad planning. Such a shame. And the wedding was so well organised up to this point…

Jesus refuses to join in by passing judgement. His response is ‘So what?’

Sometimes we will be in a situation where we will be asked to comment on something when it really isn’t our business. I’m willing to bet that in your church there will be some people who gossip. Despite the many Biblical injunctions against gossiping it seems a habit we Christians find hard to break. We do it at work too, don’t we? Or is that just me? It is just me? Ooh, you liars!

So a challenge to us when we are invited to comment is to say ‘What’s that to you and me?’ When the gossip starts we should try to say ‘so what?’

Then there’s the anticipated reaction. Jesus’ mum obviously expects him to act and he resists. He effectively says – ‘actually that’s not my responsibility’.

He could have stood up and said “Aha! I see you have run out of wine. Now fetch me jars of water. Behold I will work a miracle and solve your problem! Here you go - the freshest, tastiest and all-round best wine you have ever tasted!”

But he doesn’t do that. In fact, when he’s pushed into doing something by his meddlesome mum he does it quite secretly. Only the servants know where the wine comes from.

I believe his reluctance comes from a great compassion for whoever’s wedding this is. It’s embarrassing when you run out of wine at a wedding. I went to a wedding a couple of years ago and at the reception the caterers ran out of food. I was offered bread rolls and gravy. The couple getting married were really embarrassed when they found out.

Weddings are a big deal and to run out of wine is embarrassing. Maybe they couldn’t afford it. Expensive weddings are not an entirely new phenomenon. And Jesus knows that, so he doesn’t draw attention to it.

We will frequently find ourselves in similar situations. It is hugely tempting when we see a problem to seek to take control – to take responsibility for the project in hand. To stand up and say ‘Aha! I see you are having a problem. I will do this because you are obviously incapable!’ and so on.

But it is incredibly disempowering and undermining to do that to someone. It is embarrassing and humiliating. It dents people’s self-esteem and sense of worth. People begin to feel they are useless, and that then becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because they are afraid to try to do things.

So here’s the question – when you see a problem are you going to flamboyantly take responsibility for it and potentially undermine someone or are you going to ask, as Jesus does, ‘what is that to me’?

In fact, by saying that to his mum, Jesus leaves it open for the bridegroom or whoever is paying for this shindig to approach him and ask for help. In similar fashion, do we wait until we are approached, until our opinion is asked, until our help is sought? Of course, his mum doesn’t give the bridegroom a chance – she gets the servants over. So Jesus has to act but he does so in a way that protects the dignity of the unnamed bridegroom.

And the third – and final thing that occurs to me – is that this is a genuine question. ‘What is that to me and to you?’

It invites a response.

Most of Jesus’ questions do.

He turns to his own mum and says ‘What is that to me and to you?’

And maybe he wanted to know her response. Was this his test to her – ‘do you believe that I can make a difference?’

His mum’s response – in her typically-mum bossy way – is one of faith – possibly born from an unswerving conviction that it is her business and therefore her son’s business and that he can sort it out so he will sort it out. She ignores Jesus’ ‘so, what?’ and acts in the conviction that he will act in the situation.

We are gathered to pray and I’m sure we’ll pray about all sorts of things – here, now, in other places, at other times. As we take problems to Jesus, are we prepared, in case he says ‘so what?’

What will our response be?

Phew!

Cathy went to the opticians yesterday and told them how her eye seems to have been 'flickering' of late. She was referred to eye casualty at Heath Hospital and so I took her up there today.

We both felt apprehensive in case it would mean another op (she had one about 5 years ago). But after a good, long peer into her eye, the optician said there was nothing to worry about. Of course, now she has to wait for her super-dilated pupils to get back to normal. But at least she's home!

Interesting side note
I don't often ascribe things to supernatural intervention, but yesterday the optician said she could see lots of pigment floating in her 'eye jelly'; a condition they refer to as 'tobacco dust'. Lots of people prayed about the situation lats night, and today the optical consultant said he couldn't see any pigment, even though he was using the super-duper hospital equipment to look into her eyes.

An answer to prayer or just an interesting occurrence...?