This is part 5 of a series of posts that interact with Guy Kawasaki's 10 principles of "evangelism." Refer to my February 22, 2006 post for the set up.

Principle 5:

Let people test drive the cause. Essentially, say to people, “We think you are smart. Therefore, we aren’t going to bludgeon you into becoming our customer. Try our product, take it home, download it, and then decide if it’s right for you.” A test drive is much more powerful than an ad.

I’m going to focus on one aspect of this principle here because I plan to touch on the rest of it in the next two episodes (those two principles seem highly related to each other and to this one). I don’t want this nugget of insight to get lost in the shuffle.

Non Christians are not dumb.

I don’t know how often I’ve discerned the subtle ways in which we marginalize the intelligence of the lost—in my own language, in sermons, in Christian media, web posts, or even cheesy Christian radio morning show DJs. There can be a smug judgmentalism that creeps into our discourse. And when you listen to it with the ears of an outsider (and perhaps the ears of Jesus), it can be down right offensive.

Yet, we Christians can’t even agree on the details of the Gospel truth ourselves (unless you think some 33,000-plus U.S. denominations divided over theological lines something The Bride of Christ can be proud of).

Let me state the obvious: Faith does not signify superior intelligence, any more than superior intelligence produces faith.

Yes, we think we’ve found the eternal truth of the universe. Yes, it’s hard to see why this isn’t obvious to everyone. From personal experience, it can be a tad bit frustrating to see people who are undoubtedly smarter than I am reject this truth.

So does this threaten our faith? Are we worried that moving up the ladder of intelligence will produce the same result with us? I think for some, this is an underlying fear. All of our posturing about the greater truth we’ve found amounts to nothing more than a defense mechanism for our self esteem and transforms our walk of faith into the crutch so many outsiders judge us by.

This insecurity is not of God. How this insecurity makes us act—what it makes us say, likewise, is not of His Kingdom.

I John 4:17-18 TNIV “This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

While I had this passage in my mind while writing this post, I didn’t remember what preceded it in this chapter until I looked it up. The writer spends the earlier portion discussing how to respond to those that reject Christ, or distort the truth—and what to conclude by it. It’s rather telling that he then moves on to talk about loving without fear.

So what is there to be afraid of? In our striving to ascribe worth to others (see prior posts), let us include a generous assumption of human, God-given intelligence as an act of love. This becomes a kind of golden rule of evangelism—which really should be modus operandi for The Church in all of its dialogue with the world.

You may even want to apply the aphorism my mother told me once in an effort to keep me from becoming too smug when I excelled at something in school: “Just remember, no matter how high your grades are, there’s always someone smarter.” (This was always preceded by a generous amount of praise and encouragement, of course.)

Assume intelligence, rather than ignorance. Like Kawasaki says to potential converts, “We think you’re smart.” As St. Thomas Aquinas prayed, “Lord, in my zeal for the love of truth, let me not forget the truth about love.”

Apple has received a boatload of media attention since releasing Boot Camp Beta, in what can only be seen now as a stroke of marketing genius in the wake of the Microsoft push back of Window’s Vista. Perhaps the best analysis of this I’ve found thus far is from Daring Fireball.

Most PC pundits are expecting support for Boot Camp to be integrated into Mac OS X 10.5 harnessing Intel’s on-chip virtualization capabilities which will allow simultaneous running of Mac OS X, Windows, Linux and Unix varieties—with a shared clipboard between systems. That’s just gnarly.

But that’s not the half of it. PBS columnist Robert X. Cringley has a fascinating take on it in his latest column. He posits that Macs provide perhaps the best Windows experience sheerly by making it run insulated within the protection of OS X (and making a clean erase and reinstall of Windows an easy process--something MS suggests should be done often, but is too painful for most people to contemplate). I’m not sure if I buy all of it, but it sure makes you think. When looked back on in a few years, this will either be seen as a non event, or the defining moment of Apple’s business strategy to topple the competition in spite of the OS they offer. Time will tell all. Michael Dell must be worried.

I’ve added another experimental feature to this site for the right sidebar, something I’ve been wanting to add for a while: a Tag Cloud (see the linked wikipedia entry for the definition). This one is provided by ZoomClouds, and is based on my Blog’s RSS feed. When you visit, you can check it out to see Tags associated with my most recent posts. More yummy RSS goodness. Now I’m looking for a way to list my latest comments in the sidebar.

This is part 4 of a series of posts that interact with Guy Kawasaki's 10 principles of "evangelism." Refer to my February 22, 2006 post for the set up.

Principle 4:

“Localize the pain. No matter how revolutionary your product, don't describe it using lofty, flowery terms like “revolutionary,” “paradigm shifting,” and “curve jumping.” Macintosh wasn't positioned as the third paradigm in personal computing; instead, it increased the productivity and creativity of one person with one computer. People don't buy “revolutions.” They buy “aspirins” to fix the pain or “vitamins” to supplement their lives.”

I’ve noticed something much more in recent months. I don’t know if I’m just more sensitive to it or what, but there seems to be a lot of marketing hype being used in The Church today. You see it the most in the advertisements that fill the pages of Christian magazines (which seem to be growing in number every day). Ads for ministry/evangelism tours (a showcase of several different preachers or teachers), various conferences (youth, worship, marriage, women, men, etc.) and other products in the Christian market.

Without passing judgment on specific ministries (or businesses), what they all seem to have in common is an extraordinary amount of marketing hype—the kind of lofty, inspiring language described above.

As a marketing and public relations professional I understand the motivation around this. They want to get their message out—and they want to cut through the clutter to get people to attend their outreach events. Attendance makes the endeavor both profitable and means that “people” are being reached with the message (which, at face value, would be the Gospel).

But what if all that hype, while successful in corralling the sheep that have already been tagged as part of the flock, was actually an inhibition to others that really need to hear this message?

Now, before I go too far here, I’m willing to grant that there are new converts reached by many of these ministries—and that some hype has its place. What I’m talking about is evangelism, and the process by which you either attract people, or maybe put them off, or confuse them about the Gospel altogether.

If we take Kawasaki seriously, and consider his experience in “converting” people to become deeply loyal customers, then I think this particular principle has something important to tell us: Effective evangelism also is about people’s pain.

All the hype and marketing spin in the world can’t connect with this core reality. What Kawasaki is saying is that people don’t necessarily look to buy into the grand and glorious messages of The Church or religion. They’re looking for deliverance. They’re highly motivated to find a way to end their pain. And if we are to connect them with the saving message of the Gospel, we need to understand this—and seek to understand their pain. This must, in turn, inform how we advance our message to the world.

While there were times Jesus was not all that easy to understand, I would never consider his words to be filled with hype. His stories, instead, involved the lives and challenges of everyday people. His message of the Kingdom and his acts of compassion were about healing and deliverance—the “signs” of the Kingdom. He came to end the pain.

We are charged with advancing this Kingdom of healing and light against the kingdom of pain and darkness.

So instead of spending so much effort on how to hype the message in an advert for maximum marketing impact, perhaps we should spend the bulk of our energy on getting to know people’s pain—and why the Good News of this advancing Kingdom is the Rx they are looking for.

Don’t interpret this to mean that we can promise people a pain free life in this war-torn world. But we have the ultimate answer—and this we can promise, through flickerings of the Kingdom life on earth today, to its final and culminating establishment over all the earth tomorrow.

Revelation 21:3-4 TNIV “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

More on this in my next post in this series.