Favor With Man
How Your Public Relations Image Affects Your Church
By Ed Delph
(This article appeared in the Sept/Oct 2006 issue of Ministry Today magazine)

Let me set a stage for you. You go into a restaurant. As you walk in you notice the premises are messy, the tables are full of old dirty dishes and no one is there to seat you. Finally, you are seated by an employee who is ‘attitude challenged’ and wants the whole world to know about it. As you look at the menu you are shocked by the prices. Reluctantly, you order the overpriced food which takes forever to arrive at your table. The food is terrible. As you leave the restaurant, you find out from one of the locals that the restaurant changes owners faster than it changes employees. Now, you might be saying, “that’s where I eat!” Seriously, most of us would not go back to that restaurant unless it is the only restaurant in town. Many of us would not eat out at all!

Just think of the public relations image of this restaurant in the community. It doesn’t take long for the community to get their opinion out on a restaurant like that. It’s public relations image will determine it’s destiny.

Here’s the principle. What takes place in the community eventually becomes known in the community. It doesn’t matter if it’s a business, church, school or a mayor. Your public relations image defines you positively or negatively. Your public relations image is either your best friend or your worst enemy. What you ‘put out’ is what the community ‘hears about!’ Your public relations image gives you a face in the eyes of the community. It has tremendous influence. It defines you before your potential customers or church members ever get there. To those people, perception is reality. That perception can make you or break you. That image determines what kind of relationship the public will have with you.

Perception is Reality

Now, let’s talk about the church. Just like that restaurant, the churches public relations image is determined by it’s behavior in the community. If the community is bombarded with news of church splits, controlling leaders, doctrine wars among churches, financial mishandlings, immorality among pastors or parishioners, etc., the result can only be a negative public perception. If the church projects a superior, us/them, judgmental attitude toward the community, how can we expect them to come to our church? It’s behavior like that gives the church one of the worst public relations images in the world. Whether true or untrue, to those who don’t attend church, perception is reality. That affects our mission and the welfare of the community.

Pastors and leaders, what you do in church leaks into the community. Solomon reveals this principle in Ecclesiastes 10:20. “Furthermore, in your bedchamber do not curse a king, and in your sleeping rooms do not curse a rich man, for a bird of the heavens will carry the sound, and a winged creature will make the matter known.” Birds eat worms. When the church has worms, the birds eat them and tell everyone else about the worms…..just like that restaurant. Now, there’s a public relations lesson for you.

In other words, the church and the community are connected….right at the hip! What happens inside church walls goes outside of church walls…..quickly! We are not an island onto ourselves. We are placed in a context, the community. We’re here because they’re here! If you dishonor the community, the community will dishonor you. If you hate your community, your community will hate you. If you are unaware of your community, your community will be unaware of you. The way you see the community is the way the community sees you and your church.

Favor With God and Man

Jesus knew the power of public relations was crucial for effective ministry and community transformation. Notice His strategy in engaging the community. “And Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” Luke 2:52. Jesus used wisdom in the community context. Wisdom created stature, influence and a good public relations image. The result was favor with God and man. He connected the message with the audience creating a win/win for both God and man. He knew His mission would be hard enough. He didn’t want to make it harder by unnecessarily provoking the community. That’s wisdom!

The early church understood this principle also. They used wisdom, not compromise, to create a public relations image where the community “held them in high esteem.” Acts 5:14. In other words, public perception of them was positive even though they might not agree on everything the church believed in. This enhanced the church’s opportunity for growth and influence in the community.

As I travel around the world, I speak in churches that have favor with God but little favor with man. These well meaning churches sing the latest songs, follow the latest church fads, and have great speakers. They are great churches but the community doesn’t even know they exist. On the other hand, there are churches that have favor with man but little favor with God. They have social programs but have not opened up the Bible in years. Both types of these churches are just as ineffective, at least in the context of community transformation and enhancement.

Why be a Christian fellowship when you can be a church for the community? A church for the community has both favor with God and man!

Church Focus and Community Awareness

The Church has lost much of the authority and influence it once had in Western culture. In a sense, the Church is perceived by the community as a non-player. Noted researcher George Barna recently conducted a poll on the top seven influencers of United States culture. The result shocked most church-centric people: The Church was not even listed in the top seven influencers. In other words, while the Church was studying Greek, having Holy Ghost meetings, conducting deeper-life sermons, and cocooned in a church-centric ethos, the world changed. Why wouldn’t it? If we become a world unto ourselves, what contact can we have with the community unless it is on our terms?

In other words, the church has been so focused on church life that it has become unaware of community life. Most churches are clueless when it comes to the community. We don’t do this intentionally. It’s the culture of the church. Churches have a strong gravitational pull….inward! That creates the public perception that the church is a world unto itself using the community as a means to it’s own end. Do you like to be used for someone else’s agenda that you are ignorant of?

Churches need both church focus and community awareness to be effective. Focus is doing those things that need to be done now, and doing them correctly. Awareness is a broader focus, if you will, on the factors that might affect the success of those endeavors. The church lives in the context of the community. We need to be aware of what is going on in the community that affects our mission. After all, the church is the only organization in the world that exists primarily for it’s non-members! Our own welfare, as well as the communities welfare, depends on both focus and awareness.

Giving God a Face in the Community

If the church has a negative public relations problem and I believe it does, how do we change it? How do we change a public perception that is hindering our mission? How can we get a passport into the community once again? How do you open the gates of your community in a real and tangible way?

You need a living definition that is stronger than a public image or perception. God sent Jesus to earth to create a living definition of Himself, a real and tangible person that redefined Himself. Jesus said in John 17:26a, “I have made Thy name known to them, and I will make it known…” Jesus is essentially saying, “Father, I came to make You known….not myself….You known.” It wasn’t about Him. The Son of God became the Son of Man to make God known. The religious leaders of that time had created a negative public relations image about God and church. What did God do? He sent a real person who represented Him to change a negative public perception. He incarnated. He got involved. The Word became flesh and pitched His tent in earth’s neighborhood.

In the realm of the community, seeing is believing 99% of the time. God knew that. Natural men don’t understand the things of the Spirit. Why would we expect them to? God redefined Himself through another who made Him known to the community. A living definition is much more effective than a public perception, at least to those who are open.

Living Definitions

Now, let’s apply this principle to today’s church. How do you change a public perception that is killing us? Let me say it this way. If they can’t see us, they won’t be us! That is why living out the Christian life in both the church and community is so crucial. We are, as Paul says in II Corinthians 3:2, “living epistles read of all men.” Notice the all men in that verse. God makes Himself known through you and I in the church and the community. We make God known in the marketplace, in our neighborhoods, with our friends, at PTA….wherever. Church is everywhere we are.

This is why Christians need to be in places of influence in the marketplace. They give God a face in the eyes of the community. They redefine God. They change perceptions. Marketplace Christians have the potential to open minds and open hearts to God. How? Through the vehicles of wisdom, character and success which creates influence or stature. Marketplace influencers are identifiable to and involved in the community. They are the “living epistles” in the community context making God known. They are public relations agents changing and redefining the often negative public relations image of those in church. There will be no transformation without incarnation. Living epistles in the marketplace create a healthy church-community connection.

As I said before, living definitions have the potential to redefine negative images!

The Power of Incarnating

Do you realize the answer to community behavior and welfare is you? The problem is not government, the problem is we don’t have enough Christians in government. The problem is not media, the problem is that we don’t have enough Christians in media. We need Christians of influence in places of influence in the community. Having wisdom and being in a place to use wisdom are two different things.

The most effective influence is from the top down, not the bottom up. That’s why I travel all over the world envisioning and empowering today’s leaders and influencers in church to be tomorrow’s leaders and influencers in the community. I help position Christian people of influence into places of influence in the community. I equip the saints who are in the marketplace to do the work of their ministry, primarily outside of the church and secondarily inside of the church. Their church is the community. They influence the influencers of the community.

My advice is don’t just build a church, build a community. You serve God by serving the community. People used to always ask me, “How big is your church?” I would say, “About four million people.” That’s the population of Phoenix, Arizona where I live. My congregation was 750 but my church was four million! I treated the whole city like it was my church. The community likes that. That’s both awareness and focus. Look for a way in to your community, not a way out of your community.

The Community Builders

Let me introduce you to a few community builders and churches around the world. How about Gary Carter, the pastor of Word of Life Centre in Drayton Valley, Canada. Gary is on the town counsel and Deputy Mayor of Drayton Valley. He honors the mayor and works well with her. Gary, along with the other council members, are leading this town confidently into the future. He has helped make Drayton Valley a town of character. His leadership, enthusiasm and love for the town is contagious. He is a person of influence in a place of influence. His church is growing too! He is building his church by building the community. That’s the benefit of a good public relations image.

If you want to know how to influence the education sector of your community, just call Pastor Rob Gross of Mountain View Community Church in Kaneohe, Hawaii. Rob, along with other pastors and marketplace Christians, have changed the landscape of the education sector in Kaneohe by finding needs in the schools and meeting those needs. As a result, they have completely redefined the church in the eyes of the education sector in Kaneohe. They, through their good works in the community, have received a passport into the education sector in their area.

Obviously, these are just two examples of hundreds I could give you. Let me conclude this article with something that happened to me. I, like many of you, have been very concerned about how the media is portraying the church to the community. Some of it is the churches fault but some of it is greatly exaggerated. I decided that I had better do something about it. I met with the editor of our local newspapers, The Glendale Star and The Peoria Times. These are local weekly paid subscription newspapers in the area where I live. Their circulation is about 40,000.

I expressed my concern about the definitions of God, Church and Christians that were coming out of some media publications to the editor. After about an hour of conversation, he asked me if I would be willing to write a 400 word article each week for each of his newspapers. I said I would if I could call it the Church-Community Connection. That was in November of 2004. I have been writing the article every week since then. My goal is to redefine the God, the Church and Christians in the eyes of the community. I want to enhance the public relations image of the church in our area. I want to build a bridge to the community, not burn a bridge.

The article is now published in both small and large newspapers in approximately 15 newspapers around the world. I’m a person of influence in a place of influence. Why? I just asked. Just in our area, I’m pasturing 75,000 plus people a week through my articles. That’s connecting the message to the audience. I’m making God known to the community in a way they can relate to. That’s helping solve one of the biggest public relations problems in the world.

If the church is going to become a vision castor and influencer in our community once again, it had better become aware of the power of public relations. Having favor with God and man depends on it!