Conforming Outreach
Table of contents for Models of online ministry
One of the many ways that Christians have attempted to reach out to non-Christians is through conforming. The basic premise is that the less the gap between Christian and non-Christian the easier it will be for the non-Christian to become involved with the Christian faith. On the surface there is a lot of merit to this idea because one of the most difficult problems that Christians face is the big culture gap that often exists between those who go to church and those who don’t. If we can create an atmosphere that is familiar to the non-Christian then there is going to be less resistance to hearing what Christians have to say.
However this approach has resulted in some pretty disastrous attempts at outreach.
The worst that happens is that the message itself becomes compromised in an attempt to appeal to non-Christians. For some reason Christians have always had problems understanding the difference between the Christian faith and Christian culture. We either mistake our traditions for what we believe or we think that everything (even what we believe) is simply dependant on culture. So either we lose the message or we mistake the practice for the message. In my opinion both are disasters.
The other thing we often see is where well meaning Christians try to become something that they are not. Christians will sometimes attempt to playact at being ‘in the world’ by dressing or behaving as though they aren’t really Christians but just one of the lads. At best this ends up being a little bit embarassing and at its worst Christians with no discernable difference to non-Christians (including the bad language and drunkeness that goes with it).
How does this all apply to the Internet?
Well I think this approach does have a lot of merit – at least when it comes to the design. Christian web sites need to look and feel like everyone elses web sites. One of the problems with a lot of Christian sites is that they turn people off before they even get started. There are many Christian websites that I feel uncomfortable viewing and I’m a Christian!
The problem is though that we must have something to offer that others don’t – otherwise we just become one more web site. If we conform too much then what can we really offer?
