Advertising our Faith

Friends,

What is the best advertisement campaign ever? Take Nike for example. Every year they spend millions of dollars on advertising their product. The ads are fancy. They are video. They are audio. They are paper. The ads are on television, radio, the internet and on billboards.

The product is marketed by professional athletes who are given access to as many shoes as they need. (It is hard to imagine buying a product from someone who doesn’t have to buy it himself, but that’s another point altogether.) Go to a ball game and see the wall signs. See the ads on players hats, shirts, pants, socks, and on the gloves and bats they use. Nike places their logo in just about any place they or anyone can imagine.

I suppose some of their best advertising comes in the form of spectacular television spots that are designed to stimulate the senses. But is this really where the best advertising comes from? Is this the best Nike can do? Is the television the place where Nike sells the most shoes? I don’t think so. Let me tell you how I discovered this.

I was walking through the snow one day in my pair of Nike’s that I managed to find at the bargain price of $25 or so on the sale rack at a local sports store. The snow was fresh, clean, and no one else had dared to walk where I was walking. It is one of the small pleasures in life being the first person to walk on a fresh blanket of snow. I don’t know why, but there is something rather thrilling about being the first person to leave a trail across a yard covered in beautiful gleaming white snow. I was doing this one day.

I happened to look down and I noticed that I had left a perfectly formed footprint in the fresh snow. You know what I could see? That’s right. There in the snow, in the center of my footprint, clear as day, plain as sky, was the outline of a perfectly shaped Nike Swoosh.

This got me to thinking about advertising. I don’t care how many Nike golf balls Tiger Woods hits into a green or how many Witnesses there are to Lebron James’ mastery of the basketball. The best advertising that Nike gets is every single step that ordinary folks like myself take in a pair of their shoes. Why? Because we leave a Nike Swoosh everywhere we go. It is stamped into the mud, the dust, the grass, the concrete, snow, slush, and hardwood floors. That image, that Swoosh, left in a billion footprints every day is the best advertising that Nike will ever get.

And so too it is with the church. It is not the great big campaigns that advertise Christianity the best. It is not the Billy Graham crusades. It is not 40 Days of Purpose. It is not Your Best Life Now (not that Best Life is an ad for Christianity). None of these things: Not the biggest mega-church or the most charismatic evangelist nor the preacher with the most miracles under his belt. The best advertising the Christians do is found in every single step we take. Trillions of steps taken each day in the Name of Jesus are the best advertising we can do.

With each step of perseverance, with each step taken despite opposition and persecution, with each step taken in spite of suffering, with each step we take in the race marked out for us we ‘advertise’ Jesus. This is because Christians, like Nike, leave an imprint on this world with each step we take. This is why we press on, ahead, and are commanded not to look back. If we look back we run the risk of gloating over our victory or grousing over our failure. Instead, we look straight ahead to Jesus who also had a path to walk (Hebrews 12).

And that path is hard to walk. Oh so hard to walk.

Lord, I’m too weak to walk. Too stupid to understand. Too ungracious to be graceful. Too unlovely to be lovable. Lord, I, like you, see all the ugliness inside of my heart. I see all that which is despiseable–all that which you suffered for. And yet you chose me to be an ad campaign for Jesus. You chose me to carry his marks, his wounds, in my life. Those wounds…Lord can wounds save even me? Help me walk the path marked out for me…sketched by your finger…traced by your eye…trod by your feet…mark the place in my heart Lord that is lonely and afraid on this journey…mark it with your grace. And I–I–carry the marks of Christ?

Soli Deo Gloria!

Send the Light; Scatter the Darkness

Friends,

It’s been a long day. It is still raining and snowing here in Ohio. It is still cold and wet.

I spent the day fasting. I broke it at around 6 PM this evening. I needed some clarity and I wanted to spend a day trusting in the Lord to strengthen me. The burdens were loaded on early. I carried them only in the strength of the Lord.

A friend told me about a young man of 10 years old that has had thoughts of suicide.

Another friend told me about a young man who was recently found to be in possession of illegal drugs.

Both conversations were accompanied by tears. It is a dark world all around us.

I contrast this with a post I made at Life Under the Blue Sky about another ‘Nationwide Church Growth Campaign‘ the brochure of which was filled with smiling people who had all the answers to all the problems in one handy read-in-thirty-days-book. If only life were so simple! Unfortunately, life is not as black and white Monday-Saturday as it is in Sunday mornings from behind a pulpit. If only life were really about growing a big church where everyone is happy.

But this is not reality now, is it? There are hurting people, carrying real burdens. We come along side them and pray in Jesus’ Name for strength, comfort, healing, and grace. We come along side and help them carry their burdens.

The kids at school were particularly wound-up today. Amidst the noise I tried to pray and lift up these wounded souls, these wounded people.

Lord, I pray for these children; their parents. I pray Lord in Jesus’ Name that you scatter the darkness. I pray a hedge of protection around them. I pray You will protect them from the Enemy who prowls about like a lion waiting to pounce on a victim.

I pray for them Father that you shine the light of truth in their hearts. I pray you give them a Spirit of wisdom and revelation. I pray Lord that you will heal their brokenness. Lord here is our reality. This is what we have done with the freedom you have given us and now our children suffer, hurt, and are taken captive.

Lord in Jesus’ Name, I lift these dear ones to you and ask that you protect them from the devil’s schemes. There are others Lord. Others I don’t know who are hurting. There are other children who are being tricked by the Enemy. Lord, protect them. Jesus didn’t pray to take us out of this world, but He did pray that you would protect us from the evil one. I repeat that prayer: Protect these ones from the evil one.

Shine light. Lord, we cast our burdens on you because you care for us.

We pray in Jesus’ Name, in the Power of the Spirit, to our Holy Father in Heaven,

Amen. Amen.