Leadership and Marketing: Are they the same?

Interact with me on this thought…

Marketers give people what they want. Leaders give people what they need. 

 I wonder if marketing is often confused for leading in a consumer-driven, populous society. In a couple days, I'll be attending the Willow Creek leadership Summit. I don't like this event but I go because my leadership team supports it and because I want to help them to interact with the different concepts that are shared their. I don't like it, because, in the end, I don't feel that the Summit trains leaders but marketers.

One speaker at this summit is a marketer named Seth Godin. I'm enjoy reading Seth Godin's books and his blog. I feel that Seth has a lot of excellent thoughts that should be considered by church leaders. However, recently, I haven't been so enthralled about what he has to say. My concern is that I have been drawn into the church leader as church marketer mentality. Godin constantly talks about getting people what they want.

What people want is often not what's good for them. I want a Rita's water ice right now. One was custard in it. But I don't need it. In fact it would be bad for me in the sense that I'm already overweight and I don't need the extra calories.

In many ways, the contemporary church is overweight. It's over program and most of these programs focus on giving people what they want, not good discipleship. Granted, the church, as a fully volunteer organization, must rely on people wanting to be a part of the organization. But maybe that's the problem right there; too many people are attracted to an organization before they are attracted to faith in Jesus Christ.

So am I right on this one? Is the job of a leader to give people what they want? Where is the job of the leader to give people what they need? Maybe it's a combination of both? What they want leads into what they need. But then I wonder, how do leaders know how to make turn from what they want to what they need so that the people are willing to move away from just the thing that they want. Is there any value in giving me a Rita's water ice but telling me what I really need is a well-balanced diet?

Review of The Divine Commodity by Skye Jethani

The Divine Commodity by Leadership Journal editor Skye Jethani (Zondervan: 2009) is a green vegetable book, not a dessert book. It doesn't taste good, but it is good for you. You won't be happy that you read it, but you'll be better off. Skye Jethani will challenge your comfortable way of doing church. He will push you to consider your faith more than your religious out workings. He destroyed any chance I had of enjoying Christmas like in the feel-good way it has always been.  Jethani does all this using a wonderful comparison of the church and van Gogh paintings. It's a creative, well-written book, and as such a easy book to read. It's not an easy book to consume.

Should we celebrate Advent (or Christmas)

Note: I originally posted this as a response to a blog by Mark Roberts. He wrote on the question Is Advent Biblical? I would suggest that you read his post. He writes very well. I decided to re-post my response on my blog because I think it explains well why I'm not all keen on this season, Advent as well as Christmas.

Whether Advent is biblical, is not my concern. Certainly, it is based in the very biblical goals that you ask us to consider. All things, including Advent, and for that matter Christmas, are permissible.

However, I wonder how beneficial it is for the church to celebrate this season. I include Christmas as we currently celebrate it, particularly by demanding that the money takers take our money in the most religious was.

This whole season is a distraction. I don't know of a single family in my church that will spend more time focused on the elements of Advent that you talk about as good, instead use the Advent season to focus on material things. Celebrating Advent as a church encourages Open Season for materialism.

I say this as one who as a pastor to children. There is almost no way to spend Advent focused on Jesus. Advent, by its nature, focuses on the minor things of the scriptures, not the coming of the Savior. Sure Jesus is the consistent thread of the Advent season, but he because a minor player as we spend the month focus on Mary and donkeys, Joseph, Wise Men and Angels. Camels usually take a bigger role that Jesus. Even Jesus is caricature during this season. We talk a lot about a baby, but our link to the Jesus that died for our sins is usually lost in making Jesus God's gift to us. It is true that Jesus is a gift to us, but the way it plays out in the way we do Advent and Christmas is that Jesus is just another gift like the many we will rush out to buy after our worship service.

Sure Advent is permissible. There are many noble reasons for celebrating the season. Unfortunately, Advent and Christmas are not beneficial. Sure, you can name the half dozen people you know that turned to Christ in this season, but consider how many turn away from him and turn toward minor issues of faith or toward worldly matters.

Are you making your kids want to live with you forever?

It may be that your lifestyle is stunting the maturity of your children in such a way that they won't have the drive to move out of your home. A recent article in Psychology Today says that the trend for children to live with their parents later is attributable to our affluent lifestyle. Stephen Mason writes

It means that the tide of hormones that hits pubescent kids, the tide that causes them to want to fly from the nest provided by their parents, has been greatly attenuated by the economics of America in the 21st Century. The rights of passage and the periods of apprenticeship that have always been a part of the teen years and of growing up, have been largely replaced by an additional decade of utter dependence.

Does God like Christmas?

This time of year I get what we call the I-wanters.  That is, I see all the good sales, and I want things.

Last weekend, I stopped in the ATT store to see how much the iPhone was going for these days.  It was nice, and slightly more than I had budgeted for my birthday gift.  Since I have a December birthday, maybe I could talk Stef into bundling it with my Christmas gift.  Yeah! That's a good idea.

So....I talked to the man about the iPhone, only to find out it was the only phone in the store that required a $30-per-month data plan.  Now the $200 phone would cost me... oh... around $560 for the year over what I'm currently paying for mobile service.

So, being a smart guy, I asked the guy, "Are there any phones that you'd recommend over the iPhone.

His eye's light up as he guided me across the room to show me the new Blackberry Bold. At only $400 this phone has high rating in just about everything over the iPhone. 

Oh, it looked so nice, and there was an option of a $100 rebate.  I'll I'd have to do is order the dataplan for 3 months.  Let's see, $30 data plan times 3 equals $90.  That's $10 saving and i get to use the super fast G3 network for 3 months.  Certainly, if Stef could see the 3G's blazing speed, she'd want me to have it.  "Oh," and he added, "This phone has one of the best turn-by-turn GPS system in the world.  It even beats those that they put into Lexus and BMW cars. That's only a $10-per-month service charge."

"WOW!  I love GPS! That could only be so cooooooool!"  And it could be my birthday present/Christmas present.  Now I want it, and I want it BAD!  Let's ignor that fact that this phone would only cost me $400-$100 rebate+$90 for the first 3 monts of data service + in reality $30 times 9 because I really want the phone for the cool data feature + $120 for the monthly GPS service.  I could have this baby for only $780. Only $650 dollars more than I had budgeted for birthday and Christmas gifts.

You see, we are trying to downplay gifts this year.  We don't need stuff, but as Seth Godin points out in his bog Hungry, its the marketer's job to make me want stuff.  It's my job to realize I don't need it.

The video at the top of this unusually long post is Jon Foreman performing his song Instead.  It is a lovely reworking of the sentiments in Is. 1:11-17 or maybe Amos 5:21-24.  When it comes to Christmas, I'm never really happy.

I wonder if it is because this season has become on of those festivals that Isaiah and Amos write about.  Could God really be pleased with me when I celebrate the coming of his Son with buying myself a cell phone or buying my child a new 50-inch flatscreen TV?  Maybe I'm not that far out--maybe it is just the Wii @ $400 that I'm getting my kid to set along side the PS3 and X-box?  Or whatever else it might be that is cause me to have the I-wanters?  Can those I-wanter be what God hates when they overcome my attention on justice and righteous living?