{"id":411,"date":"2005-10-10T11:21:57","date_gmt":"2005-10-10T19:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/?p=411"},"modified":"2005-10-11T06:27:39","modified_gmt":"2005-10-11T14:27:39","slug":"pastor-is-your-church-too-small","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2005\/10\/10\/pastor-is-your-church-too-small","title":{"rendered":"Pastor, Is Your Church Too&nbsp;Small?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/gallery2\/d\/6433-1\/2002-04-18-inside-enzyte.jpg?w=840\" alt=\"He even looks a little like a pastor...\" class=\"alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/sociology.unc.edu\/directory\/gradstudents\/adamlong\">Adam Long<\/a> recently emailed this to me and some other friends and with his permission I post it here for the world to&nbsp;enjoy.<\/p>\n<p>A disclaimer: I don\u2019t know anything about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smartleadership.com\/default.asp\">Nelson Searcy<\/a>. He\u2019s probably a great guy who has very helpful insights. The commentary below isn\u2019t about him or his ministry\u2013it\u2019s about his marketing. In fact, it\u2019s about the way most ministry training is marketed. And it\u2019s pretty funny.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I have a long running problem with the conflation of capitalist marketing and church life. Yes, yes, I believe in redeeming the culture. No, no, I\u2019m not a Marxist. But I think that we may be heading down a dangerous road. And we need to think things through before diving in.<\/p>\n<p>So here\u2019s my problem. I think there\u2019s too much similarity between marketing for \u201cchurch growth\u201d services and male enhancement products.<\/p>\n<p>Please don\u2019t dismiss this. I\u2019m not trying to be unnecessarily provocative. I don\u2019t completely buy Freud, but so much church growth material seems to tap a certain form of envy that strikes many&nbsp;males.<\/p>\n<p>Just take a look at the following quotes from the attached piece, \u201cWHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT A COACHING COMMUNITY WITH NELSON SEARCY.\u201d<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Assimilation has been&nbsp;huge!!!<\/li>\n<li>I was slumping in my personal growth&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li>This would have saved me several years of frustration<\/li>\n<li>You don\u2019t have to be alone, do it&nbsp;alone<\/li>\n<li>Coaching Community gave me more confidence, competency<\/li>\n<li>Do it!  It is worth exponentially more than the&nbsp;fees!<\/li>\n<li>Don\u2019t miss this opportunity to grow yourself<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I\u2019ve heard people compare TBN to the Home Shopping Network. It\u2019s so easy to make fun of others as long as their religious style differs from ours. But what happens when \u201cour\u201d groups sound like Enzyte comercials? Seriously? What do we&nbsp;do?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The uber-witty <a href=\"http:\/\/swfamilyfellowship.com\/OurL.cfm\">Anthony Scoma<\/a> replied:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>That is hilarious, but you missed the best line, My being challenged as a leader has raised \u201cthe bar\u201d for leaders in our church.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Adam Long recently emailed this to me and some other friends and with his permission I post it here for the world to&nbsp;enjoy. A disclaimer: I don\u2019t know anything about Nelson Searcy. He\u2019s probably a great guy who has very helpful insights. The commentary below isn\u2019t about him or his ministry\u2013it\u2019s about his marketing. In \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2005\/10\/10\/pastor-is-your-church-too-small\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \u201cPastor, Is Your Church Too&nbsp;Small?\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-assemblies-of-god"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-6D","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}