Jesus Cropped from the Picture

Jesus Cropped from the Picture

Churches employed the second step ( market targeting ) by selecting which groups had the best chance of success in their church. Finally, the third step ( product positioning ) was implemented when programs were designed to suit the segmented groups. All these segmenting activities were fine on the surface, but without a foundational identity, rooted in the Kingdom Story, segmenting had a disunifying affect on the local church. When churches split people into various affinity groups (segments), each affinity group forms a sense of identity that separates it from the church as a whole. Since each local church had already lost its connection to the overall Story (when Christ was cropped from the picture) , target marketing in the local church created another layer of disconnection from the Story. Identity was no longer grounded in the Kingdom, nor the Church, nor even the local church. Instead, the individuals identified themselves as part of an affinity group (“my youth group, my mid-week Bible study, or my adult Sunday School class”). This kind of fragmentation can create multiple “churches within a church,” where the local church (church A) is viewed as separate from the affinity group (church B). Each church B may have little to no allegiance to church A except as “A” provides for “B.” So a person can be perfectly content to attend an adult Sunday school class without connecting to the broader community (church A) in which it was formed.

De-Cropping by Un-Segmenting Where the Marketing Concept seeks to separate people into segments based on personal interests, identification with the Church’s Sacred

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