As a young boy, I remember sitting in front of our black and white TV screen and seeing the Borden Milk commercials featuring “Elsie, the Contented Cow!” Elsie was iconic, and at that time Borden was the only national dairy company in the United States. Elsie appeared in Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parades, the World’s Fair, major universities, and even cameos in Hollywood and on Broadway.

In the 1980s, though, ownership changed hands, and a rebranding of the products led to the company’s decline.

There is nothing wrong with branding. I owned a real estate company for about five years, so I understand the need to distinguish yourself from your competitors. But when rebranding hits the church of Jesus Christ, we may have gone a bridge too far.

While driving to visit a friend in the hospital last week, I passed a church billboard proclaiming, “Miracles, Signs, and Wonders,” with an arrow pointing toward the church building. Ads and websites will highlight coffee shops, stadium seating, powerful worship, and more.

There is nothing wrong with any of those things in and of themselves. The danger is when churches seek to appeal to the consumer mindset of our day. The thought is, As long as you keep me happy with all of your attractions, I will come to your church. The downside is that those people act like consumers, and they will flat-out wear you out as you try to entertain them. The “new cross” is one of entertainment, not sacrifice.

Pastor, author, and, dare I say, prophet A. W. Tozer addressed this mindset years ago. “Does not the new cross win converts and make many followers and so carry the advantage of numerical success?” (The Pursuit of Man)

Numbers are the new criteria for determining success. Again, there is nothing wrong with numbers, only with how they are achieved. Years ago, I met pastor and author Jim Cymbala at a “Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire” conference in Atlanta, Georgia. As we talked, he lamented the fact that so many pastors came to him wanting to learn a “program” to increase the numbers in their churches.

There are growing churches today that have a different brand, a brand not of this world but from God Himself. Tozer provides us with a set of marching orders.

“The heaviest obligation lying upon the Christian Church today is to purify and elevate her concept of God until it is once more worthy of Him — and of her… We do the greatest service to the next generations by passing on to them unimpeded and undiminished that noble concept of God which we received from our Hebrew and Christian fathers of generations past. This will prove of greater value to them than anything that art and science can devise.” (The Knowledge of the Holy)

Make sure the branding of your church is from the Holy Spirit and not from the carnal spirit of this world. Does it hold a lofty concept of God, one worthy of the saints who gave their lives in service to her? Is Jesus elevated as King?

Jesus warned His disciples, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21, ESV).

Ignorance is not always bliss!

What say ye, Man of Valor?
Semper Fidelis!