Rebranding

I'm continuing to reread Skye Jenathi's Divine Conspiracy, slower this time (last time I read whole chapters at a time), and I'm in the middle of the chapter on branding.

Branding is something that has taken over marketing - rather than good products, you establish a solid name. When ValuJet went into the swamp, they rebranded as AirTran and are relatively thriving. McDonald's found that if you slap a McDonald's label on carrots or milk, kids think it tastes better.

Skye brings up much about branding in the churches, but misses just as much I realize in reflection. One of his big points is about the way worship is our major branding of churches - not theology or doctrine, but rather what is the music styling.

But he misses some major possible points (maybe as editor of the christian magazine Leadership he had to play it slightly cautious and avoid the obvious?). An example of branding - in much of our nation, when a new Southern Baptist congregation opens its doors, the "Southern Baptist" part is deeply buried. It is the new local "community church" or some other non-descriptive name, hiding itself to look like a non-denominational church. I've seen others do the same. Nearby at an elementary school, there's an Anglican church meeting as "Trinity Church" - never knew it was Anglican until visiting another Anglican church and they mentioned in announcements about a joint Thanksgiving dinner with them.

Another one more daring to make - the brand "Christian" is tainted. Biblically, disciple is a much more common label for the believers. Christian is actually mentioned all of what, once? in all the Bible. We've adopted it as a universal community, but with the label tainted, do we need to hold onto it as tightly as we do?

More over, other labels would be more descriptive of what we are to be anyway. I prefer disciple, as by definition a disciple follows the master in order to learn at the master's feet and become like the master. "Christian" has almost become a political word. "Friends" or "Friends of Christ" would be another we could use, as Jesus did use it to refer to his closest disciples. "Followers" would be as justifiable from the Bible as "Christian". They are a lot of terms we could use that are just as justified from a single Bible reading than "Christian".

If we could drop the use of "Christian", with its baggage, and use "disciple" or "friends of Jesus" or "Christ follower", would we find an easier time in our mission(s)?

It worked for ValuJet.