About a month ago, I posted a blog called "What If Starbucks Marketed Like the Church." You can watch it here.
It was done by the folks over at Beyond Relevance.
Today, they posted an interested discussion about the language we use within the church. Here's the post:
There
is no doubt that Starbucks has their own language. Tall, Grande,
Venti… (Let's call it Starbucksian). For the most part, churches have
their own language too. Having your own language is sometimes a
valuable weapon in your marketing arsenal, but yielded without planning
and precision, it can be deadly to your culture. Basically, it’s a
two-edged sword. On one hand, if you don’t know the language, you feel
lost and on the "outside." However, if you know the language, you feel
"included," special and "in-the-know."
"Code" language is a very
insider thing. Many churches will ask, if insider language is a bad
thing, why does Starbucks do it? Simple. They want insiders. As an
outsider, you learn the secret code by ordering a drink. If you don’t
know it, someone is standing right there, looking you in the face and
helping you engage your transition between outsider and insider. They
are there to even suggest a drink. When someone has a puzzled look on
their face, you quickly hear… "Would you like something hot or cold?"
"Would you like something sweet?" They are literally trained to
identify a newcomer and immediately make them comfortable without any
kind of embarrassment. They are "hands on" to steer you into an
addictive Mocha Frappucino. After you visit about three times, you are
the master. You’ve got your drink and your size down pat. You’re an
insider now. The bridge to that point was built very deliberately by
Starbucks themselves in an effort to create insiders. Brilliant!
Now,
why is this not working so well for churches? One, most churches speak
Christian-ese not as a bridge to gain insiders, but as a validation
tool with other insiders. AKA: I prove my spirituality in the number of
three-syllable Bible words I can say. As churches, we often make it
difficult for visitors to understand our code. We don’t have
interpreters waiting to greet visitors at the front door, their job
solely to explain everything we intend to say. When someone does
indicate they might not know our ways, many churches throw them under
the bus and make a show of them—asking them to stand up, raise their
hands, and fill out forms.
If the visitor tries to follow along,
our insider jokes and language—the very stuff that rallies the troops
and makes believers feel like they’re in the cool "in-crowd" (the “God
is good…. All the time” stuff from the video)—all of those insider jokes just remind them that they’re outsiders.
What's
the key? Just that: a key. It’s like a map that you need to read the
key to understand the symbols. The key is a bridge. The key is an
explanation. Without explanation, you leave outsiders out. Without the
barista telling me what the stuff is, I’m lost. With the barista
carefully explaining the coded language, I’m on my way to becoming an
insider. So, insider language in itself is not the issue unless it is
left to resolve with out deliberate explanation.
Make this
commitment: never let a service take place where you don’t break down
church vocabulary for the visitors present and tell them the story
behind our inside jokes. The secret behind this is two-fold: if you
commit to it, 1) you’ll build stronger bridges and 2) you’ll get tired
of bringing in so much context to all your insider verbiage, that
you'll cut it down to the minimum.
As a church, do you have your
own language? Do your inside jokes leave an outsider feeling further
outside? It’s time to build a bridge. Change your language or commit to
bridge-building. Without it, your church might be good at winning over
other Christians, but you will leave a lost and dying world dying to
know what you’re talking about.