Media Outreach

I recently read the book Getting Naked by Patrick Lencioni. The premise of the book is a fictitious story of a man at a consulting firm that is forced by his superiors to spend time with their new acquisition, a smaller rival consulting firm. Lencioni uses many of his personal experiences in the book to make an easy, entertaining and eye-opening read.

While the book is mostly geared towards businesses in the service industry, with common interaction to clients, this could be easily applied to The Church.

Lencioni lists a number of “fears” that keep a business from succeeding with client relationships.  Here are few key points I feel that we can learn a little something from.

-Give Away the Business-
Rooting from a “fear of losing the business”, often times we want to ensure that we have “secured a sale” before giving away the best fruits of an organization.  We, The Church, can learn to love people unconditionally, regardless of whether they attend the church.  Not everything we pass out has to have our logo on it. It could just carry the brand of Christ. If the public wants to know where you came from, and why you are loving them with such passion, it is most likely that they will ask you.

-Celebrate Your Mistakes-
Understanding the many statistics of how heavy a first impression is, we focus all too much on the “fear of being embarrassed”.  No one enjoys being wrong!  But Lencioni brings the valid point that, “rather than attempt to hide or downplay their errors, they readily call them out and take responsibility for them”.  We must always be as prepared as possible, so everyone knows that we care to take the necessary time.  However, an honest relationship is built on trust.  If we lack transparency and authenticity, we miss out on the foundation of a true relationship.

-Do the Dirty Work-
This is a no brainer.  Letting go of the “fear of feeling inferior” we must stride into the service we are called to. Bowing to Christ requires shedding of self.  Lencioni nails it when he says, “Sometimes what a client needs isn’t as attractive or exciting as we would like.”  It seems easy to give a child in an orphanage a hug on the overseas mission trip to a third world country.  But what about giving a hug to the stinky, filthy homeless person that is yelling about kittens?  Or inviting the needy, possibly annoying people that require all of your energy over to your home to listen to their woes?  Doing the dirty work means you don’t get the glory.

I feel strongly that if we abandon the urge to cover up our sins and shortcomings, and wholly surrender to Christ, the love we pour on friends, family and strangers will be so genuine there would be no concern of validity.  Once we have embraced the theory of “getting naked” we will see that advertising and marketing will only be an after thought in relation to reaching the community.

Photo By: D3 San Francisco