I was too busy with band to be on the debate team but I was asked to “spar” with them by a teacher who noticed my love (back then) for arguing in class. I spent an afternoon debating to get the team ready for an upcoming meet. And I learned something that day that has stuck with me: The farther a person is from the fence the less likely they are to have their mind changed. And the farther someone is from the fence the more resources (time, money, creativity, trust) it takes to change their mind. Look, I graphed it out like the dork I am.
My mom would be on the fence. She never talks about politics – ever – but she seems, in day-to-day conversation to have a set of values that land her on both sides of the political fence. I betcha, if I wanted to, and if she believed voting was a good idea in general, it would take very little effort to convince her one candidate is a better vote than another.
Then there’s my dad. He has an NRA sticker on on his bumper. He only gets angry – truly – when the Clintons are mentioned. He reads the Limbaugh newsletter. He buys America made cars. We’ve never fought a war he didn’t think was a good idea. He uses words like “environmental wacko” and “feminazi.” Any Democrat (even if not related to Bill) could spend every cent in the coffers trying to convince him their the best candidate and never change my father’s mind.
Are the Democratic candidates out there trying to change my mother’s mind? My father’s? Both? Should they with finite resources and a time-table?
But this isn’t a post about politics. I’m not thinking about the next election. It’s just a parallel. I’m thinking about evangelizing and marketing. Faith and business.
If you’re a Christian you are used by God to embody God on earth, used by God to persuade others that he exists and that he is like this and that and he wants this and that. We Christians vary in our beliefs about how actively we are to spread our faith and exactly how it’s to be done though. Preach on a street corner? Leave a tract on a toilet seat? Invest in Christian radio? Be a good neighbor? Separate yourself from non-Christians? Be as much like non-Christians as possible? Be cool and current? Be old-fashioned and historically orthodox? Be politically active? Be politically indifferent? Be loud? Be silent?
Can this curve help us – no matter what our beliefs about evangelism – do evangelism better? Should we invest more of our resources in those plotted closer to the fence? Should we invest more heavily in those farthest from it? Should we forget curves and fences and invest, regardless of our finite resources, in people no matter where they are on the curve? Even with the clock ticking?
And in business, we market our wares – ideas, toilet paper, blogs – by spending finite resources as well. Can this curve help us make better marketing decisions too? Should Compassion International, for instance, spend as much money trying to persuade a male college student in the Northwest to sponsor a child as they do persuading a suburban mother of two in the Southeast?
I’m a political scientist, and I can tell you with 100% certainty that the Democrats only spend money trying to change your mother’s mind. American elections (especially at the national level) are almost always decided by the 10-20% of voters in the “swing” area – what you’re calling the fence. We call this the Median Voter Theorem. Candidates have to win most of those truly undecided voters in the middle in order to win. Everybody else is just assumed to be going one way or the other with a high level of consistency.
Only on rare occasions – what we call “critical and realigning elections” – is there a strong chance of getting people from the bases of the other party to switch sides. Problem is, critical/realigining elections only happen during things like, say, the Great Depression, and we can only recognize them in retrospect, so there’s little incentive for a politician to waste time and resources on a group of people he or she knows probably won’t vote for him/her regardless. That’s why Democratic candidates for president don’t campaign in Texas during the general election.
(Sorry for the Government 101 lecture. Who’s the geek now?)
Anyway, as far as your actual point goes, I’m very hesitant to use the language of marketing and political manipulation when it comes to the work of the Holy Spirit, which, after all, is what evangelism and the work of faith are dependent upon. Unlike politicians, our resources are not severely limited by federal campaign finance regulations, and if the church universal (not to mention the American church) were actually doing the work of the church instead of creating and sheilding a very comfortable culture that ignores the realities of suffering around the world, we wouldn’t have to worry about marketing hungry children to Christians in different geographic areas. The work would already be done.
It depends…
With evangelism, I don’t think our resources are ever wasted. Whether I invest in someone who’s dead-set against Christ or in someone who thinks about spiritual things 24/7, I might never see what God will do through me to move either person closer to Him.
With Compassion International, I would “sell” the idea of sponosoring children to those who I thought would be more likely to sponsor a child. We just did a sponsorship Sunday at my church… and every child, every single one, that was sponsored was done so by those who could probably afford it less- those who were 25 and younger. So, if I had to get so many children sponsored, I would aim it at the twenty-something crowd.
I think money should be spent to market Compassion across the board, however, I think the type of marketing used to attract college-age males should be much different from that used to appeal to middle-aged moms.
In the acknowledgement section of Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster, he stays this:
“As I revise Celebration, I am struck profoundly by the weakness of words. At best they are broken and fragmented witnesses to God’s truth. We do indeed see through a glass darkly. And yet I am struck even more profoundly by the fact that God can take something so inadequate, so imperfect, so foolish as words on paper and use them to transform lives. How this happens I do not know. It is a miracle of grace…”
While Foster is talking about his book, I think the same thing applies in any kind of “marketing” of the Gospel. Ultimately, it has very little to do with the marketing tool and more with the One being marketed. I think as long as that is realized (which I’m quite sure it is), evangelically the decision to reach out to college-age males would be a good idea.
If we’re strictly talking marketing, though, it’s probably a more sound investment to direct those dollars to those with a higher probable response—that being those middle-aged moms.
When you add all the spiritual parts to the mix, it sure gets complicated!
Your bigfoot mother is on the fence?
Sorry, I’ll stop talkin’ bout yo mama.
I’m not sure about the money-spending stuff, but I do know that in every good and right thing there’s a certain perfect balance that you always need God’s help to find. I could say more but I’m outta time.
Several other comments have already hinted at this, but the real wild card in your discussion that makes it a completely different animal is the God factor.
If there were no God factor then, yes, spend resources on those most likely to be convinced. But we have a God factor, which throws a standard assessment of resources out the window. We can move mountains for goodness sake!
Of course all that to say I have no idea what you practically do. Because you have to work with the resources you have. But you can’t rule out the God factor. It’s a pickle. But a more hopeful pickle than if we only had our own meager resources.
Okay, I can say a little more now.
Referring to “the God factor”, I’m wondering why we would choose invest in any good cause. Is it for God? If yes, then we need to seek Him in what He wants for this situation. If it’s not, what is it for? A religion? A good reputaion? Pure ambition?
I find that if we surrender to God and reach to whoever He brings to us, then we shall be most effective.
That’s what we were talking about right?
Texas in Africa pegged with “if the church universal (not to mention the American church) were actually doing the work of the church instead of creating and shielding a very comfortable culture that ignores the realities of suffering around the world, we wouldn’t have to worry about marketing hungry children to Christians in different geographic areas. The work would already be done.”
I’ve done Compassion Sundays and seen too that, generally, the less people have to begin with, the more they are willing to give. Gee, I guess Wes’ saying that you can’t out give the poor is really true.
I try to always bring all the letters I’ve received from our sponsored children to every Compassion event I do. When people see the impact that sponsorship has on each child, they are ready to give.
Beth
Fascinating question, Shaun.
My husband works in the nonprofit arena, so I know this is an incredibly practical question that even Christian NGOs have to ask.
Personally, I think the wisest use of funds is to go after the audience that is most likely to give. That’s Marketing 101. But like many others said, because God is involved here, it wouldn’t be right to ignore the ones who are less likely to give. You never know what God is going to do.
Personally I think that the people who are more likely to give are the 20 somethings. The mid-American moms are so overwhelmed most of the time they can’t see outside their own house. I know this is a broad generalization, but I would guess that the idealistic “kid” who thinks he’ll change the world one child at a time is more likely to sponsor.
We had way more interested people at CreationFest and a SonicFlood concert in college than I’ve ever seen at a Compassion Sunday church event.
Your graph is interesting by the way… I’m just curious what it would look like the other way. All the way up to Jesus is a Democrat!
I agree with Kevin D. Hendricks’ comment: “But we have a God factor, which throws a standard assessment of resources out the window. We can move mountains for goodness sake!”
In business, or politics, I am trying to market something with human, earthly resources so it makes sense to go after those closest to the fence. When it comes to the gospel and the Kingdom of God, I have God fully invested in the cause, and He can do anything!
In many ways “winning” looks so much different when we’re working for God’s Kingdom than it does when working in worldly realms because we are contributing to a cause that we already know with certainty will be ultimately victorious.
Reading the Freakonomics blog the other day about the politics of happiness and they mentioned that people “on the fence” are usually less happy than those at extreme viewpoints. Just pointing that out in case it has some affect here. I could see in politics, those swing voters are such perhaps because they’re not necessarily as happy as those on the outskirts and therefore would be willing to vote across the fence to improve their situation.
With all that said, if we’re speaking of evangelism, we should push that to everyone, no matter how we feel their possibility of conversion may be. Since realistically funds are limited in a local church, I would think you would want an equal distribution across all conversion “possibility levels” so that everyone possible is exposed to the good news and we let the Holy Spirt do his work.
For a group like compassion however, I would see them targeting distinct groups that have shown the greatest possibility of giving. While there still is a “God Factor” here of the Holy Spirit laying the need on someone’s heart to give, the limited resources necessitate the targeted marketing strategy. If what people are saying above is true and a large portion of Compassion donors are <25 years old, then I could definately see the need to ramp up college concert visits and a heavy online presence.
Ok, I’ll stop rambling now.