Consuming God at more than Market Value

We have already seen that branding aims at creating a unique product that will satisfy the desires of the consumer. But can this be said of both consumer goods and religious desires? Can we market the church the same way we market consumer goods and services?

In his book “Marketing the Church,” Barna defines church marketing as the performance of both business and ministry activities that impact the church’s target audience with the intention of ministering to and fulfilling their spiritual, social, emotional, and physical needs, thereby satisfying the ministry goals of the church. In this definition Barna has already stated that the goal of the church is to satisfy the needs of the church’s target audience.

Barna’s definition of church marketing does not differ much from the secular understanding of marketing as he defines it in his book “The Frog in the Kettle: What Christians Need to Know about Life in the Year 2000.” He defines Marketing as the performance of business activities that direct the flow of goods and services from the producer to the consumer, to satisfy the needs and desires of the consumer and the goals and objectives of the producer.

Can this definition of marketing be applied to religious desires? Is the church a product, or put yet in other words, is the church’s ministry a product that can be geared toward people’s desires? To what extent can the church satisfy the desires of its members and how is this related to the desire for goods and services?

A critical examination of the nature and mission of the church is helpful in this discussion. The nature and mission of the church is found in God’s will for human society. As Ray Anderson writes in “Minding God’s Business,” “God’s will for human society is that it fulfill his covenant purpose and promise here on earth and be prepared to be a people of God destined to share his eternal glory.” The will of God is expressed in a community that lives under God’s rule and so becoming a sign of the kingdom of God. This community is called the church.

The church seeks to bring the gospel of the kingdom to all of human society, liberating the world from its fateful bondage to self-serving strivings, and healing its estrangement from God’s gracious purpose and promise. The church is therefore not here about itself but about God. Its sole purpose for existence is not to serve the desires of its members but to fulfill God’s mandate. Thus, the church is both an apostolic body and a missional being.

The church is the agent through whom the gospel of the kingdom is proclaimed to the whole world. This gospel is the source of the church’s apostolic mandate to proclaim Christ to the world through specific mission activities. the mission of the church becomes, therefore, not the satisfaction of its members’ needs and wants, but the propagation of the will of God on earth. How the church goes about this is more important than what it actually achieves. The end, in God’s way of business, never justifies the means.

But just how is the church supposed to go about its business without offending God? This will be the focus of our next discussion.

Have a great weekend!

Coming Closer to Consumer-driven Christianity

Last week we started off by discussing Church growth specialists. These good friends are emphasizing the importance of a Church's uniqueness in attracting a certain class or type of members. We said that in their minds of business, Churches are religious brands in the market economy of religious goods and services. But if denominations can be treated as brands, how does this branding contribute to the overriding mission of the universal Church of Christ?

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's goods or services as distinct from those of other sellers. The legal term for brand is trademark. A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller. If used for the firm as a whole, the preferred term is trade name. Branding therefore can be defined as the process of creating uniqueness of one seller or product from another. Branding creates brand identity which is a unique set of brand associations. These brand associations represent what the brand stands for and imply a promise to customers from the organization members.

A brand is itself a product in the first place. For example, some people will prefer Nike running shoes to Adidas even if both these two serve the same purpose. A brand becomes a product especially when it possesses attributes, qualities, values, uses, and users that would prefer it to other similar products in the market. Branding can also be in form of an organization’s name. As an organization, a brand will be appreciated on the grounds of innovation, consumer concern, trustworthiness, and scope of operation.

To succeed at creating a brand, an organization needs to position the brand in such a way that it appeals to a target audience, is actively communicated, and provides competitive advantage. A brand’s success is measured by its ability to compete favorably in the market by maintaining a competitive price, outmatching its competitors, being consistent in innovation, meeting the needs of the market segment, and its ability to avoid short term pressures.

As we said last week, Church growth experts are adopting Church marketing concepts not so different from consumer product branding. Church growth experts are emphasizing such elements of Church growth as strategic planning, positioning, demographic segmentation, niche marketing, differentiation, and individual satisfaction. In his book “Church Marketing: Breaking Ground for the Harvest,” Church growth and Church research specialist George Barna devotes an entire chapter to the concept of Church positioning. Barna writes that one of the keys to positioning a Church is to be the first to get to the desired position within people’s perceptual maps. This is because in our information-saturated, overstimulated, laden-with-choices society, people remember and accept the first entity that satisfactorily fills their mental void. In other words Barna is saying that a Church needs to position itself in such a way that it outperforms its competitors; competitors in this case being other Churches or places of worship.

Barna continues to write that in order for a Church to achieve favorable positioning, it has to learn how to engage in target marketing. Target marketing is the process of dividing the aggregate population the Church could serve into discrete, definable portions, and identifying one or a few portions on which the Church will focus its efforts. Barna adds that almost all successful marketers these days engage in target marketing. In Barna’s opinion, a Church needs to select a target audience and offer people a restricted product base (i.e. services people need), one that fits its vision for ministry. The Church should focus upon meeting the needs of a targeted portion of the aggregate area.

By recommending target marketing for a Church, Barna assumes that the Church can be marketed the same way as any other consumer product. Barna assumes a comparative relationship between desires for material goods and services, and desire for religion. But just how similar are these two?

Hang on till next time.

Happy New Year!

Auctioning Silent Night: Why more people would rather buy Junk than Jesus

A man stared at me from a distance. I thought I had met him before. I later found out I hadn’t. He was holding five shopping bags in his two muscular arms. His two boys were sitting on Santa’s lap for a memorable picture of the year. I stopped and asked the man if we had met before. He looked at me in the eyes and said, “Never mind young man; at this time of year I normally lose my mind. My wife has been in Victoria Secrets for more than three hours now. My kids are having their best of Santa; and I don’t know where my daughter has wondered off to. No body seems to care that I will be at work tomorrow morning. Well, I guess this is what holidays are all about.”

I looked at this man and saw a humble, caring, troubled gentleman of a father and husband who wishes Christ was not born on Christmas day. What a burden this Holy night brings on this man! Which reminds me of a commercial I read about a few days ago:

For anyone who has ever dreamed of being a star or becoming a part of the wonderful A Christmas Carol tradition, this could be your ticket! By entering the Silent Night Auction, you could win one of five opportunities to perform on-stage with the company of A Christmas Carol. This could be your chance to visit Charles Dickens’ London and meet Ebenezer Scrooge as well as support Meadow Brook Theatre. It will be a holiday experience you will remember for many years to come. If you are the high bid winner, you and a guest will join the cast of A Christmas Carol and participate in all the street scenes. You will also receive a Meadow Brook Theatre tote bag filled with a coffee mug, a special compact disc of the carols from the show and two tickets to your performance so that your friends and family can see your on-stage debut.

What about this email from a dear pastor to his parishioners:

Dear Church members,

The Christmas Fair is this week. That means that the final time to shop on line for the Silent Auction is 1:00 pm on Friday. Please visit our Church website to start shopping now. The Fair opens at 5 on Friday with good food available for your dinner in the kitchen as well as on the bake table. The auction closes at 2 pm on Saturday, one hour before the Fair closes. Come and bid for your favorite items. Many parishioners have been working hours to offer you their hand crafted items. We also have books, cds, white elephant offerings, electronics, a basket of gourmet treats and other items to be sold by chances on Grandmas table, lots of home baked goods, and a delicious meal to keep you shopping and visiting. It is a wonderful time to share. Join us and bring all of your friends.

In marketing there is something called brand equity and I have always wanted to measure how much equity “Brand Christmas” has. Without being too “busynessy,” brand equity can be defined as: The added value a brand name identity brings to a product or service beyond the functional benefits provided; a positive image established through name recognition; the financial value of a brand to the bottom line profit of a business; The value - both tangible and intangible that a brand adds to a product or service.

I know some of you are wondering where I am going with this, but I think it is important for me to start from Christmas as we develop our subject on Church marketing and “Brand Church.” Some of you expressed your concerns telling me that it is okay to market the Church as long as we stick to the essential product which is Christ. I find this an interesting paradigm and I am willing to explore this line of thought. But at this time I would like to start with Christmas and explore with you how Christmas is bound up or not bound up with Christ. May be later on we will talk about the Church’s sacred space and see how much we can do with it in relation to the mission of Christ. This will take us into Church schools, million dollar Church buildings, state of the art Church sound systems, Church gyms, Church auctions, Church coffee shops, Church boutiques, and a few others.

At this time though, I would like to end with a solicitation for ideas about your Christmas and your Christmas gifts, both received and given. How do these play into the message of Christmas and how central are they to the man of the season? Are you auctioning silent night under your spotted Christmas tree or is this another day just like any other day for families to have fun and fellowship? How do you go about this?

If you can’t post a comment on my blog, just email me at amonikas@yahoo.fr

Merry Christmas and happy shopping!

Marketing the Church: What is Wrong or Right With the Brand?

A few days ago I began collecting my thoughts about church and church marketing. Some people think the church is a business which should be marketed with techniques from Wall Street and God knows where. Others think the church is from a different mother altogether and what works for business works against the church. Just how much business should there be in church practice and how much church should there be in church business?

Numerous books have been written about marketing the church. Several denominations have adopted statements of faith and styles of worship to stand out from the ordinary. Efforts to unify the church have failed over the centuries due to the various cultural differences embraced by Bible believing Christians. Church growth specialists emphasize the importance of a church’s uniqueness in attracting a certain class or type of adherents. Churches are, in other words, religious brands in the market economy of religious goods and services. But if denominations can be treated as brands, how does this branding contribute to the overriding mission of the universal church of Christ?

In the next few days I would like to interact with you on this subject. Together we will examine the selected literature available on church growth and church marketing and to evaluate the extent to which the ideas presented in this literature affect the overall mission of the universal church of Jesus Christ. We will also examine church branding and how it relates to the Trinitarian nature of a communal God. Together we will draw a conclusive analysis of the effect of branding and marketing on the mission of the church. So why don’t you hang on and together take this thing to the end.

A la prochaine (till next time) and Merry Christmas to you!

Examining our Motivations for Giving

I have just returned from a long weekend in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I call it long because I am an African who grew up on a 75 degree temperature diet 24/7. And guess what we were consuming in Winnipeg; Minus 10. If freezing doesn’t mean anything to you, it means a world to me. I could literally feel my face turn into ice. And it didn’t matter how many layers of thick wool I threw on my samsonite-size body, the heat was just not finding its way into my skin. When I was finally dropped off at the airport by one of my best friends, I sure was not ready to part company with him and his family, but I was certainly ready to kiss the snow goodbye. I am glad I am back in drooping-rain Portland. I can definitely handle the rain but not snow. Anyways, enough of my cold adventure rumblings.

Lat week I started a discussion on money and giving and I thought we should pursue it further. Thanks for your comments. Let’s dive right into motivations for giving.

Organizations today are hiring topnotch sociologists and marketers to study consumer habits. Someone on Madison Avenue right now is feeding information into his computer about your spending habits and will send that information to marketing experts who will in turn send you junk mail relevant to your consumer habits. All of us who buy goods and services have become laboratory specimens for marketing experts. Next time you buy running shoes ask yourself why you did not buy Adidas but Nike. You know very well that this is your fifth pair of Nike’s and you are just not about to change your consumer habits even if Adidas will do pretty much the same job. The same goes to your third Toyota Camry even though the Honda Accord would provide the same accord to your family of three. Marketing experts know how to dig deep into our emotions and pull out those things that sit deep in our decision-making modula operandi.

The scary thing though is that some Christian organizations and churches are not innocent in this rat-bisecting, consumer-driven probing of donors and supporters. Some Christian organizations are hiring marketing experts to study trends in donations and to come up with a strategy that would maximize their donor gifts. These organizations are asking questions such as “what are the motivations for giving and how can we positively harness these motivations?”

Callahan in his book “Giving and Stewardship in an Effective Church” has listed five motivations for giving: They include compassion, community, challenge, reasonability, and commitment. Motivation is basically internal, not external. Manipulation is external. The above five motivations are the major internal resources out of which people internally motivate themselves to become part of an organization or congregation. In his article “Fundraising: Why People (and Foundations) Give Away Their Money,” Robinson mentions credibility and referral as being some of the most important motivations for giving. As far as credibility is concerned, donors want to know if the organization is well-organized, competent and legitimate. Referral is about friends referring friends. People are most likely to give if they were referred to the organization by their friends, family members, or colleagues.

Personally I have given a dollar or two here and there, and may be will continue to do so. I know that you have done the same too. My worry though is that most people are giving money to organizations based entirely on compassion, community, challenge, reasonability, referral, and commitment. What about efficiency and effectiveness of these organizations? Are these organizations doing with your money what they said they would do in the literature? I think that its high time we donors started bisecting the numerous organizations with a sharp surgical razor to find out what lies on the inside of each one of them. We need to be more responsible with God’s resources and give to those causes that are making a real impact- organizations whose effectiveness is measurable not in terms of its balance sheet at the end of its fiscal year but in terms of real needs met and real problems solved. Period!

Why I Give My Hard- earned Cash

If you haven’t been asked to give money to one cause or another, consider yourself living on another planet. From starving children in Africa to dog lovers’ associations in blue-hill neighborhoods, the list is endless. Some research shows that Christians get asked to give more than any other social group. From televangelists to humble local pastors serving on less than a dollar a day, the requests never stop coming.

We can’t deny the fact that the Bible is full of examples and teachings about giving. Probably the best form of giving we find in scriptures is God himself who gave his only begotten Son (John 3:16). Today Christians respond to God’s calling by doing and giving. Whereas the love of money is discouraged in scriptures (1 Tim 3:3; 1 Tim 6:10, Heb 13:5), the possession of it is encouraged (Deut 8:18; Ecl 10:9). Since money is a product of labor, money is ultimately a form of God’s time and talent, stored in the creation of the world made available to human use.

The average Christian has mastered the theology of giving. The hard part is that, with so many appeals for money from all kinds of organizations, the average Christian is bombarded with all kinds of options to give his hard-earned dollar. Choosing which organization to give to is becoming harder and harder. Should Christians be selective in where they give their money or should they give to any organization that has a good cause for the Lord.

Then there is the new era of spending more and more on personal goods and services. Television commercials are telling Christians to buy because they deserve good things too. Christian organizations and churches are competing for the same dollar that local and online stores are targeting. Organizations are also competing among themselves as the average donations to Christian organizations continue to suffer in favor of real value marketable goods and services.

The dwindling finances of Christian organizations and churches are not being helped by the commercialization of giving or fundraising. Some churches are promising prosperity and wealth to the giver, yet some of those who have been giving for years have not seen this promised wealth as of yet. Radio and television commercials of starving children make people give for the wrong reasons. Others are not giving because they think that organizations which advertise on radio and television are unethical.

Why are people giving less and less? Some people lack motivation to give away their hard-earned money because the church has failed to provide a compelling vision for how the money will make a difference in the world. Others see their giving as leverage on the future. Some don’t realize the church needs their money to be effective. Some lack the proper understanding of what the Bible teaches about giving. Some are just selfish.
Why do you give? Where do you give? Why don’t you give?
Any comments?

The Chief End of Man

Every time we children at home decided to do something new, my mother always pulled out her black dust-kissed Bible and quoted a milliard of verses explaining why we should or shouldn’t do this or that. One of those things involved this one day when I wanted to uproot a mango tree behind our kitchen because that was a cool spot for my new house. I was 12 and very excited about building my first house. My mom then quoted verses from Genesis to somewhere I can’t remember explaining why destroying nature annoys God. “God put us here to take care of the environment not to destroy it,” she continued.

Two years ago I went back to my small village in Africa and my mom put a basket of ripe mangoes before me. She picked out one of the juiciest and said “eat from the fruits of your intended destruction.” I didn’t know what she meant until she explained how 20 years ago I had intentions of destroying the same mango tree that gave birth to the juice I was about to enjoy. Of course I was quick to repent because I was not prepared for another reading through the book of Genesis defending the cause for mango trees. My mom and I had had enough battles when I was growing up. I was a very inquisitive kid who did not take things for granted. For example I remember one day turning the pages of my mom’s veteran’s Bible to find a verse that could prove to her that raising pigs was better than cows. I couldn’t find one. And as soon as I put down the Bible she found five to defend her cause and outlawed piggery from that day on. I still hope that one day I will find a verse or two to prove her wrong; if not for a good old conversation with my 65 year-old mom, may be just for fun.

But is this what it is all about? Finding a verse or two to defend what we believe? Yet that is what I see in Christianity today. Religion in the 21st century is taking an interesting turn. From radical fundamentalism to authentic conversations, the spectrum in-between is interesting to watch. I have heard Christians debate such hot topics as gay marriages, abortion, environmental stewardship, global warming, among other chill-down-the-spine topics. Of course you can tell that I am lost in the sea of bubbling Bobs. What is left of the Bible? Where do we start to debate issues that all of us are divided about? Who is right? Who is wrong?

I believe that we Christians are moving away from the fabric of religion into useless bubbling that is hindering our effectiveness. Is the chief end of man debating endless issues that do not contribute to the basics of our religion? Issues are going to keep coming up. And if Christians are devoting their talents and time to debating emerging mosaics of worldly concepts, what is going to be left of the gospel of love? You see I believe that we are working so hard to defend the cause of God as if God is some helpless fellow who can’t defend himself. We can’t go on fighting to defend the glory of God and loose sight of his love for us and for all mankind. I see this as chasing after the wind. The world will continue to be worldly. That’s why it’s called “the world.”

Unlike the Westminster catechist which emphasizes fighting for the glory of God, I believe that our role is to love God and to show the world how much he loves all and wants us to come under the wings of his unfailing love. We Christians should be riding on the wings of love, not opinions, holy wars, and endless theological battlegrounds. We are loosing it and the world is laughing.

Psychology or Astrology?

A few weeks ago I was asked to write and present a paper on the proper response to the thought that personality tests and other psychological testing have pagan astrology as their basis. I had to think twice. I knew I had taken many of these tests myself without thinking twice. And now I was supposed to defend or ditch them. So before I made my input, my first stop was at the library to examine some of the writers’ opinions and later form my own.

Personality tests aim at categorizing people according to certain observable forms of behavior, which Keirsey and Bates (1984) believe are important in interpersonal relationships. People are different from each other and no amount of getting after them is going to change them. And there is no reason to change them, because the differences are probably good not bad.

The study of personality has been aided by a number of tools including, among others, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the DiSC Personal Profile System (PPS), the Biblical Personal Profiles (BPP), the Taylor-Johnson Temperament Analysis (TJTA), the LaHaye Temperament Analysis (LTA), the Personality Profile Test (PPT), and the Spiritual Gifts Inventories (http://www.rapidnet.com). The big questions is to what degree are these tests related to, or have a bearing towards, pagan astrology?

According to the expository dictionary of Bible words, the word astrology as used in the context of the Book of Daniel is linked with magic and sorcery. People who practice magic and sorcery, referred to as “diviners of heavens” (Isaiah 47:13), expect to find guidance for the decisions they must make and to gain insight into the future. Scripture does, however, prohibit God’s people from looking to any source but the Lord himself for personal guidance. Deuteronomy 8 calls all such practices “detestable” and says “Let no one be found among you who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiriticit or who consults the dead” (18:10-11). Scripture gives a number of ways Christians can be guided. These include the completed word of God, the indwelling Holy Spirit, the insights of other Christians, circumstances, and the proper use of our renewed minds (Romans 12:2). These sources provide all the guidance we need. To turn to any other source is to insult the living Lord and to reject the guidance he has provided.

The grand question is whether personality testing and its suggestion of who we are is outside the proper use of what God has ordained to guide us, thus qualifying as divination or astrology. A careful examination of astrology as it stands side by side with personality testing is necessary if we are to understand the similarities or the differences. Take the horoscope for example. By plotting all the heavenly bodies pertinent to the sign under which an individual is born, an astrologer draws up a celestial map known as a horoscope. Conclusions are drawn from this regarding one’s personality, tendencies etc., and thus predictions are made. The question is how different are these “horoscope” predictions from the four temperaments of Keirsey and Bates or from all the other personality groupings? How scientific are these predictions and how can we be certain that they are not rooted in astrology and fortunetelling? In their book “Magic, Mystery, and Science,” Burton and Grandy (2004) confer that the occult, the magic, and the mystery of the ancient worlds still seeks refugee in western civilization through science and psychology.

Just how different are we and how much can personality tests define the kind of people we are- our weaknesses and strengths, our actions and human relationships? How much does the Holy Spirit change our temperaments? How much does God change us to suit the kind of ministry he has called us to do? Can we say that we are wired this way or that way? Doesn’t God reserve the ultimate control of our personalities? Can personality tests define who I am and how I relate with fellow man? Much as one can argue that the idea of personality and temperament is truth related to anthropology, it is also true that the philosophers who have passed on our lessons in anthropology were greatly influenced by the mythological beliefs of their time. In the same breath, therefore, believers ought to pay close attention to whatever form of knowledge that claims to define and predict human behaviors based on formula and method. The study of temperament and personality traits might as well be the new form of astrology, the civilized horoscope with scientific evidence.

A Prophet of Doom?

No. That’s not what you would call a learned man like Federal Reserve chairman , Ben Bernanke. So what do you call him? A realist? I think so. Uncle Ben’s comments on the downwardly moving American economy are frightening. Ben Bernanke speaking on behalf of the Federal Reserve on Thursday told Congress that the American economy was going to get worse. What will a powerful country like America do if its dollar, the internationally acclaimed medium of exchange, hit a down-low average against the ever rising euro? What does that mean to the American economy, the strongest economy in the known world?

China, with a mushroom-growth rate of 11.3 percent is topping the charts against all odds. Compare this to America’s 2.45 percent growth and the rising cost in housing and gas prices and you have a picture you don’t want to paint. The big post-office-box question is “are we seeing a green-swing in the pendulum of world economies and super-power muscle-flexing as we have seen in the past?”

Strong economies have come and gone. This whole scenario leaves us still wondering. What really matters in the world today? Power? Money? Wealth? What are we running after and what is the end of things? Now, I am not really saying that money is not important. Money is a very good thing. The author of of Ecclesiastes writes that money is a protection and that it does answer all things. The point I am making here is that the world comes to a crisis when its chief end is to amass wealth and live a happy and uninterrupted life. One of the wisest men in history wrote, “I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is vanity and striving after wind. Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had exerted, and behold all was vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun. And I set my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly; I realized that this also is striving after wind.

This brings up another important quesation. What is the chief end of man? The westminister catechist confronted this question centuries ago by stating that "the chief end of man is to glorify God by enjoying him forever." But how does this enjoying look like?

To be continued…..
Comments are welcome. Click on "comments" below.

Who Needs Help?

I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; from where shall my help come.
My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth.
He will not allow your foot to slip; He who keeps you will not slumber.
Psalm 121:1-2

We need help; help when everything around us seems to be going against us. We need help great help, stable help, and constant help. Where does our help come from? In whom have we placed our trust? So many times we turn to the left and to the right looking for help from friends, family, and sometimes the government. And in most cases we have been disappointed. At times we have put trust in our own strength and wisdom, and hoped that we would make things right for ourselves. But even then we have become disillusioned by our own efforts; for with them come fear, failure and constant disappointments. Our trust should be in the Lord who made heaven and earth. If we put our trust in Him, we can rest assured that our help is on the way and will not fail to reach us in due time; for He who sends it is never too early or too late. God has promised to protect us from all evil. And when we go to him for help, we should go with that attitude of surety that He who promised is faithful to complete what He promised.

Reading these verses makes me feel ashamed of myself for trying hard to achieve my freedom on my own. I feel relieved that I can rest in God knowing that He has my best interests in mind. I know of a few things that I have been stressed about even though I knew I couldn’t do anything about them in my own might. But still I was worried and troubled. Going through these affirming verses about God’s provision is like lifting a heavy burden off my shoulder. I can now rest in God knowing that He who keeps me will not sleep or slumber. He is watching over me and I just need to rest in Him knowing that He is working out the best plan for me amidst of all my turmoil and difficulties.

Walking the Road to Humility

Walking the Road through Serving

Christ has commanded that he who is chief among the brethren should be as he that serves (Luke 22:26), for the one that serves is greater than the one that reclines at the table (Luke 22:27). Christ modeled this example by serving his disciples. On that Passover feast before he could face his hour of trial, Jesus laid aside his garments, girded himself with a towel and washed his disciples’ feet. This he did to demonstrate the spirit of servanthood and humility which those who follow him ought to have (John 13:1-ff).

Walking the Road through Love

Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (I Corinthians 13: 4- 8).

Walking the Road by Putting Others First

Pride, the opposite of humility, finds its way in self importance and self focus which is the opposite of Christ’s command to “love one another, even as I have loved you” (John 13:34). By putting others first, we walk in Jesus’ footsteps of humility who seeks not his own glory but the glory of God his Father (John 8:50).

Walking the Road by Giving Equal Treatment

God sees all people equal in his sight. God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34-35) and he expects us to look at people with the same lenses.

The Road to Humility

"In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural Passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself...For even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility." - Benjamin Franklinan

Can we achieve total freedom from pride and self seeking egotism? This is one of the oldest questions in the school of man’s total deliverance from selfish desires. Whereas total deliverance may be something ahead of us, God does value the steps.

Christ our Model.
The life of Christ is the ultimate model in our journey to humility. Christ lived a life of humility and obedience to the Father. He speaks of his relation to the Father as working for the will of the Father and doing everything by the Father’s empowerment. The son can do nothing of himself (John 5:19). The son does not seek his own glory (John 8:50) but the glory of the one who sent him (John 6:38). As you work towards humility, seek to have this attitude which was in Christ, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant (Philippians 2:6-7). Because of this humility, God gave Christ a name which is above every other name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil 2:9-11).

"I am Humble; Am I Not?"

Proude of My Humility
Paul warns against a certain type of false humility (Colossians 2:18-23). This kind of humility is a self-seeking, voluntary kind which has to be guarded against. It is not genuine humility to humble ourselves with the feeling that we are greater than others, but only when we do not think of self at all. It is possible to be proud of our humility. The question then is what is this genuine Christian humility and how does it express itself?

Watch me: I am Humble, Am I Not?

True Christian humility is not the kind that seeks to be wondered at, but one that is active at work and in being more interested in others than self. It is found in being more committed to truth than convenience, in being more inclined to look up to others than to look down on them, and like the incarnate Son of God, being more comfortable with the lowly than the great. Humility is more silent than loud; it is more a done thing than a said thing. And because the humble can never know they are, humility makes no attempt to project itself. It certainly makes no pretence of being humble.

Jesus on Humility

The Poor in Spirit
Jesus not only strongly impressed his disciples with the need for humility, but was himself its supreme example. He described himself as meek and lowly in heart (Matthew 11:19). The first of the beatitudes was to “the poor in spirit” (Matthew 5:3), and it was “the meek” who should “inherit the earth.”

Who is greater?
Humility, according to Jesus, is the way to true greatness: he who should “humble himself as this little child” should be “the greatest in the kingdom of heaven”; “Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled; and whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted (Matthew 18:4, 23:12; Luke 14:11)."

Servant of Servants
Jesus himself set a touching example of humility in his washing of the disciples’ feet (John. 13:1-ff). Paul therefore makes an earnest appeal to Christians (Philippians 2:1-ff) that they should cherish and manifest the spirit of their Lord’s humility, who humbled himself to the point of death on the cross.

What Humility Is and Is Not

Graces of the Soul

Humility, according to Unger’s Bible Dictionary, is an inwrought grace of the soul that allows one to think of himself no more highly than he ought to think (Ephesians. 4:1-2; Colossians 3:12-13; Romans 12:3). The exercise of humility is first and foremost toward God (Matthew 11:29; James 1:21).

Humility- not Self-depreciation
Humility requires us to feel that in God’s sight we have no merit and to in honor prefer others to ourselves (Romans 12: 10; Proverbs 15:33.) Humility does not demand undue self-depreciation but rather humbleness of self-estimation and freedom from pride.

What About Our Enemies?
Humility must also be expressed toward those who wrong us, in order that their insults and wrongdoing might be used by God for our benefit (Acts 20:18-21). Humility is commanded by God (Psalms 25:9; Colossians3:12; James 4:6, 10) and is essential to discipleship under Christ (Matthew 18:3-4).