From an entertainment and branding standpoint, church has a lot of lessons.
Disclaimer: I did a lot of Christian church time in my early years, but I’m not a church historian, I’m not looking up much info during this writing, and I am not going to approach this from any theological perspective. I hope if church people use this post to get more people to attend and enjoy, they use that attention to improve lives.
I hope entertainment people can pickup some inspiration from this especially. What we do is bigger than some lights and makeup and smoke and mirrors. We affect people and add meaning to their lives. We are community leaders and public servants. We are healers.
Institutions are time capsules
I have a repulsion to institutions. I try to get into things like clubs and stuff, but the way they hold on to past ways really makes it difficult for me. Even reverence of old theater companies gets under my skin a little bit.
The positive side of institutions like giant churches being slow to change is that we can see what worked for a long time. We can analyze why humans needed certain rules and traditions because they are living demonstrations of optimized gatherings.
New churches are messing up
I think that contemporary Christian churches are trying to be modern and youthful and accessible. Often, they’re trying to be gentler and more open. This stuff can be nice, but this article is about how they’re throwing out the baby with the baptism water. The experience can be more sticky and more cathartic.
Lock in
“Lock in” in marketing is about making it difficult for the customer to switch to one of your competitors. Like imagine if you decided to switch cell phone providers today. Oh, man! It takes forever. Maybe two and a half hours at the Verizon store!
Since people generally feel like a phone plan is more required than a church, a person who’s not locked in to your church may get exploration fatigue and not go to any church. Comedy shows are even more vulnerable to this problem.
Wanted to define lock in really quickly because it’s gonna come up a lot.
Youth doesn’t matter. Leadership does
Diversity of viewpoints is important to good entertainment, but while congregations are diminishing because of aging-out, many places are thinking they need young ministers to bring in young people.
Great entertainment is about leadership. A great leader must be aware of what the audience is experiencing and be able to take them to the next level. Usually experience makes a person better at this, so getting a dude because he’s 22 and has tattoos isn’t necessarily the way to “rock” your congregation and keep them coming back.
Accessibility isn’t everything
There’s often a thought, “If we want more visitors, we gotta make it easy for them to join in.” The problem is that churches aren’t going for visitors. They’re going for members. Repeat customers are easier for acquisition, and they build the community. A first time visitor probably won’t donate much money or rake the church yard Sunday afternoon. Need more lock in.
Lack of accessibility helps with retention. When someone comes to Scot Nery’s Boobietrap, they enter through the back, the venue is a little shifty, the hallway is long, and they’re not really sure what they’re into. It takes a while to pick up on what’s going on and feel a part of it. After you’ve dealt with that experience, you know that next time will be easier and the time and energy you expended with that introduction is a sunk cost that will make you want to experience it again.
Lack of accessibility also adds to exclusivity (this is something special) and it makes a person want to see their friends experience the integration process.
Serve a Small Community
When the population of earth was smaller, there would be a church to fit a village or a neighborhood. Now, there’s a huge number of people. I can’t count them all. There a bunch of kinds of churches. People are willing to drive to get to their favorite church.
The lines that describe your community maybe aren’t geographical anymore, but drawing those lines in social circles can be really helpful for determining what your group is about.
Let’s say one group you’re focussed on is parents in their 20s. That means you might want to setup a daycare, parenting classes, student debt classes, alternatives to clubbing, stuff like that. You’re tax-free, so set up great services to the community, but make sure you know who your community is.
If you’re doing a thing for everyone, you’re doing a thing for no one.
Serve who your community cares about
If your community is older people who are really into patriotism, maybe create programs for veterans, or soldiers’ families. Then, your community feels good about being part of an important service.
Talk about yourself
Gatherings gain a lot by setting up their edges and constantly explaining to attendees that they are within the edges. “This is who we are!” This church is a thing.
Glide in San Francisco is really good at this. I don’t know if they ever mentioned Jesus in the service I attended, but they mentioned Glide about 1000 times. This gains them lock-in and also reminds the members that no matter what disagreements we have or differences of opinion, we are all pro-Glide.
Become the authority (of something)
When people couldn’t read, when books were scrolls and were rare, folks could go to church to hear the bible. The church was the authority on what was expected for life. It was the authority of a lot of things.
It’s hard to decide a position for a group of people, but deciding to be the authority in one realm, gives attendees something to latch onto.
Scot Nery’s Boobietrap is an authority in weird/variety/circus badassery. People can come and know that and feel like they can trust us for at least one thing.
Art
A lot of new churches are gatherings in auditoriums. Blank spaces with projector screens. You gotta make that sitch special, folks! You ever walk into a historical opera house or a Cirque Du Soleil Show? That’s religious!
With entertainment, we want to be in sheep mode. When people are awe-struck, they’re more receptive, and more trusting of leadership. Create a wonderful, artistic emersion so people can connect and accept. I’m not saying have a bunch of kids paint murals. I mean hire Michelangelo or some other ninja to blow people away!
Ditch the background band
Music is art too, but I wanted to say… some new churches have these anonymous background rock bands because kids love the rock music? I don’t know what it is. Contemporary christian rock is not my jam. Regardless of that. The band is just some people making music.
Compare this to an organ player who’s positioned on this high bench playing a ridiculously loud, grand and dynamic instrument while wearing a totally bananas shiny robe. There are not pipe organs at any bars in town. You can’t travel with an organ. This is special.
I don’t listen to pipe-organ radio or anything, either, but the point is make the music grand! If you’re going to have a band, have a band you can’t hear anywhere else. Give the band a name so that they’re on a pedestal. Get them to write the songs or commission original songs. It isn’t about ego. It’s about making the experience potent and giving value to your audience.
Fear works
Damn, if those old churches didn’t know how to weaponize fear! Well, fear works. You don’t have to terrorize people to use fear. There’s fear of lost opportunity, there’s fear of missing out, there’s fear of loneliness. All these things can be leveraged to sell more of whatever you’re selling. The difference between using fear for good and bad: you don’t have to manufacture fear, you can use the fear that already exists and offer a solution to the problem.
Offer clarity
I went to church as a kid because I was overwhelmed with life and I wanted answers. I found the most strict church in my town because they seemed very confident and very black and white in how they translated the bible. I got some clarity and direction. Very calming.
Just like I said to be an authority, fence yourself in and make some statements. Be clear. Say yes to some things and say no to others. Make commitments. Many organizations are trying to say nothing so as not to offend. If you’re serving a specific community, there will be some black and white things for them and they’ll want to hear it. Maybe it isn’t “You’ll go to hell for dancing with the opposite sex,” but it’s “We won’t stand for children suffering in our town.”
Ritual is wonderful
Ritual is baked in to humans. It’s so nice to do the same thing over and over. It’s a relief to let a practice be more important than your momentary comfort or opinion.
All the standing up, sitting down, repeating things, singing from the same book, and whatnot is incredible in certain ways. It reduces stress, gets engagement, and give the audience a feeling of purpose. When people learn the rituals of a church that are peculiar at first you get more lock in!
Boobietrap is every Wednesday (well we’re on a little break because squirrels have taken over) and that weekly nature is incredible for people’s mental health… especially mine!
I wrote this as an exploration.
I’ve sat through a ton of bad church services. I’ve just spent so much time there that I want to get something out of it. Writing this has helped me to refine my thinking and see what applies and what I’ve learned. If it helped you to develop your show, your church, or your weird hamster cult, please lemme know.
I might not go to your church, but I feel if you’re making people sit there, you could at least give ’em a good show!