Questions From a Cup of Coffee

When I went to Burning Man Festival a few years ago one of the more interesting facets was a display of pictures of people holding up their written responses to the question "Why do you do what you do?" I think this is a healthy question to ask ourselves, and one which we should ask more often, particularly in church contexts.

I was reminded of this as I drove down I-15 in Utah and saw a billboard put up by a local church. The caption read "Church Caffeinated," and between the two words was the image of a large cup of coffee. My reaction to the billboard was a mixture of disbelief and confusion. For those outside of my Utah context some background might be helpful in understanding my reaction.

Nearly 70 percent of Utah's population is Latter-day Saint, and this religious subculture has a number of distinctive practices, one of which is a dietary guideline known as the Word of Wisdom that encourages members to avoid "strong drink," usually interpreted as caffeinated and alcoholic drinks. With this in mind it's not difficult to see how the connection between a local church and a taboo drink might not be well received by the local religious population. To feel the emotional force of this consider a billboard put up in the Bible belt by a local Rastafarian group with the image of a marijuana cigarette and the words "church high" used as a means of attracting new members.

In light of these considerations I wonder why the church who sponsored the "church caffeinated" billboard would advertise itself in a way that would put itself at odds with a significant religious practice of the dominant religious culture. Throughout history, as the church has expressed itself in different cultures those that are the most meaningful to these cultures are those that are contextualized, or framed in ways that reduce the "cultural distance" between those "planting" the church and those who will make up its participants.

I understand this is a fairly large church for Utah so I am trying to come to grips with their advertising audience and rationale. Perhaps the church isn't trying to communicate to the general religious culture, but instead is trying to reach evangelicals looking for a more contemporary church experience. Another possibility is that the church is aiming a portion of this marketing message toward disaffected former Latter-day Saints who might gravitate toward a symbol that opposes their former religious culture. Even with these possibilities in mind as explanations it seems curious to me why a church would use such a marketing approach, even aimed at these possible constituencies, that puts itself at odds with the local religious culture.

Maybe its time for the church in general, even when it thinks its doing something relevant and hip, to start asking itself "Why do I do what I do?" In so doing we can bring our communication strategies, and our theology, into dialogue with the cultures in which we live.