United Methodists Who Don't Claim the Name

If you visit the web site for Granger Community Church, you might browse through page after page without realizing that Granger is a United Methodist congregation. The only indicator I was able to find was a note on a time line a few pages in. If you click on 1988, you'll see that Granger received a United Methodist charter that year. GCC's Wikipedia entry, however, confirms that it is indeed a "United Methodist megachurch" and notes a weekend attendance range between 5,000 and 9,000.

Granger is just one among many churches in our connection that don't emphasize (or even outright avoid) the United Methodist name, logos and branding in their church identity and marketing. Other churches use "A United Methodist Congregation" or something similar as their tag line, but even that often shows up only one font size larger than the church sign manufacturer's name.

Clayton Childers is troubled by this. In a recent essay for the UM Reporter, Childers writes:

From an outreach standpoint, it is hard to explain, let alone justify. People who do branding studies have found that United Methodist is one of the top two religious “brands” in the U.S. It has also been determined that our denomination’s logo, the cross and flame, is one of the most readily recognized symbols.

I'm a loyal United Methodist, but this trend of churches "running away" from the UMC brand doesn't really bother me. Here's why. If denominations were cola drinks, the UMC would be Pepsi. We're number two, but our sales are going down. Number one is Coke (Southern Baptist Convention) but the last time I checked, Coke's sales were going down, too. (And the SBC's attendance has reached a plateau or maybe even decreased. I can't find the latest figures.)

So how have the big cola companies dealt with their flagship brands falling out of favor? They've developed new soft drink brands, including sports drinks and bottled water. Pepsi and Coke have broadened their corporate focus from a single brand of cola to multiple beverage brands. In our denomination, our "product" is ultimately not the United Methodist Church, it's the Gospel of Jesus Christ. (Please forgive me for these marketing analogies. I understand that Jesus isn't a consumable product or brand name.) If Pepsi and Coke had gone into "protection mode" years ago when they were losing sales to specialty beverages and sports drinks, that would have been an unwise move, and soft drink sales surely would've continued to decline. Instead, Pepsi and Coke developed their own "competing" brands and products. They adapted to market conditions. Today Gatorade is owned by Pepsi, and Coke has its own Powerade sports drink.

Starbucks bought competitor Seattle's Best five years ago, but instead of converting Seattle's Best stores to Starbucks stores, it made SB a subsidiary and kept the SB name. Some people who don't like Starbucks probably frequent Seattle's Best and Starbucks is cool with that because their product is coffee and they're fulfilling their mission (which is presumably to sell all of the coffee they can.) Starbucks isn't being dishonest or misleading, but they're also not using the tag line "a Starbucks subsidiary" in their Seattle's Best branding. In the same way, UM churches that play down the UM name and branding aren't necessarily being disloyal or rejecting United Methodism, they're just trying to expand their reach! Some people are prejudiced against all denominations, and some others just may not have a good impression of United Methodism.

In his Reporter article, Rev. Childers discusses the cross and flame logo and the "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors" slogan:

...the positive response to our “Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors” advertising is paying dividends. People are identifying the church with the positive, hopeful message portrayed in the ads.
...
I love our cross and flame logo. It says so much in its simplicity. When I see it, I see a church centered on the love of Christ expressed supremely on the cross and the living power of the Spirit expressed in the flame.

I'm not sure the ad campaigns are as effective as we've been led to believe. How many years have we used "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors"? And how much have we grown during that time? I'm not trying to be difficult here, I'm just suggesting that perhaps it's time for something fresh. Maybe a slogan that includes Jesus Christ somehow.

I love the cross and flame logo too, but let's not assume that everyone knows what it means. I've had a number of minority teenagers in my youth ministry over the years ask me why we have a burning cross on the side of our church building. Think about that for a minute. For everyone who had the courage to ask me that, I'm sure there were others who quietly wondered the same thing.

My pastor sometimes says that he isn't interested in making more Methodists, he wants to make more Christians. By saying that, he's not putting down the UMC, he's just setting priorities. Let's not forget why we're here.

I say "Go, Granger." I wish we had a few hundred more UM churches just like it.

Comments

[Andy]

As much as I love the UMC, the days of denominational loyalty are over. Folks today are going to go where they find relevance to their lives. I'm trilled that there are UMC congregations that are doing that, however they look. As they preach, live, and teach our theology of grace, they'll get the work of the UMC done, no matter how big or small the UMC letters are in front of the church.

[Scott]

Excellent comments, Shane!

The issue is that sometime we confuse the mission of making disciples with making United Methodists.

Also, check out the UM Report blog where the issue of a burning cross is raised... I suggested that some have viewed the cross and flame as problematic...

http://umportal.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/11/a-question-i-often-ask-myself.html

[Jerad]

That's a great analogy. Starting a new brand--you still have the same structure, and you're still marketing the same product. I've never thought of it like that before. Thanks!

[John B]

I find it ironic that the question about why churches aren't using the UM name coming from a leader of the Gen. Bd of Church & Society. There has been more than one time that I've been so embarrassed by some radical statement the GBCS has released (often in direct conflict with our Discipline) that I have wanted to take the words United Methodist off my church sign.

It should be noted that the churches who are minimizing the association with the UMC are growing. Shouldn't that tell us something?

[Tim Stevens]

As one of the pastors at Granger, I especially appreciated your article and insights. I've reposted it at www.leadingsmart.com.

Can I suggest you add Mark Beeson, senior pastor at Granger, to your blog roll?
www.markbeeson.com

[Andrew C. Thompson]

Not knowing anyone from Granger personally, I still say 'Go Granger!' so long as the congregation is actively saving souls and making disciples of Jesus Christ.

But the relationship of a local church to its larger denominational communion is more complicated than just the positives and negatives of branding. For instance, I'm sure many folks at Granger don't realize that the congregation itself does not own its own property. The buildings, the land, etc., is held in trust by the congregation for the North Indiana Annual Conference of the UMC. That means that if Granger ever did decide it wanted to disaffiliate with the UMC, it would have to hand over the keys to its bishop and move to purchase its own property. And when churches have broken denominational ties in the past and tried to take their property with them, they always lose in court (i.e., due to the fact that the U.S. Court system has a history of not interfering with the internal ecclesiastical law of denominations).

So there are levels of connectedness that Granger Community Church should take seriously. For instance, if the General Conference of the UMC ever changed its stances on theological issues in a radical way (such as the doctrine of salvation, the Trinity, etc.), Granger would have to make a decision about what to do about that. And that is where the congregational, community church model followed by many mega-churches runs into problems, when (and this is important) those mega-churches do not actually have a congregational polity but rather are members of larger ecclesiastical communions.

None of this is to say that Granger shouldn't be pursuing ministry in the way that it is. John Wesley himself wasn't interested in building a denomination (a foreign concept in his context). He was interested in making what he called "real Christians." In his essay, "The Character of a Methodist," written to try and explain the Methodist movement to the larger English society, he defined Methodists as Christians who take the commandments to love God and love neighbor so seriously that they actually embody them in their lives. So insofar as Methodists today are pursuing that mission, they are real Wesleyans (whether they know it or not!).

Related to that, I would only say that there are significant ways to be "Methodist" that have nothing to do with trying to perpetuate denominationalism. If we believe in the universal atonement of Jesus Christ, the doctrine of free grace available to all people, the calling to holiness of heart and life, and a form of discipleship framed by works of piety and works of mercy, then we are true Methodists. But as Wesley himself argued, all that means is that we are being true Christians. Denominational identity should never be claimed as an end to itself. It should be claimed because we actually believe that the theological basis of whatever tradition we are in embodies a faithful witness of the Christian gospel. And in that sense, it matters whether Granger or any other church is identified as Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, etc. It's not an issue of the propriety of branding, but rather one of theological grounding.

[guy m williams]

with you, Shane. call me crazy, but it seems that continuing in the theological and missional tradition of Wesley and the Methodists is more important than having a particular emblem or even denominational affiliation prominently displayed on one's building, signage, stationary, etc.

[Kevin Watson]

Shane, Thank you for this well written, thought-provoking post. It seems to me that you have wonderfully spelled out what is at stake in whether UM churches "advertise" that they are UM. I also agree that the ad campaign could use some work. I have met several people who, when they found out that I was a UM pastor, commented on how much they loved our commercials. However, none of them were considering worshipping in a UM congregation in the slightest. They just liked that they commercials were inclusive and unoffensive.

[John Meunier]

Here's another innovation at Granger:

http://www.nicumc.org/cd/blog/?p=373

[Jerad]

Having thought about this a little longer... I wonder whether the brand identity helps with member retention? Again, to demonstrate the evangelical utility of the popular "open doors" campaign, churches would have to hand out surveys to each new member asking what had brought them thus far. But are there people in UM churches who would go AG, Nazarene, Baptist, or something else but for some sort of internal satisfaction derived from their identification with the open doors ads?

[Jerad]

OK, I know the conversation's been dead for over 2 weeks, but I found this on the UMC's church planting website:

http://umcnewchurchstarts.org/?p=119#more-119

If you don't want to paste the link, here's the money quote:

"The data suggests that churches using the Igniting Ministry public launch media strategies have seen an increase of 30-50% in adult worship attendance."

I note the word "suggests," but at least there's data.