Saturday, August 14, 2010

New way to boost numbers: Watch for it!

The main thing is the main thing, we all know, and the main thing is growth. We want to grow, both in numbers and in spiritual façade, and that means bringing in the sheaves: the young, healthy, financially and organizationally stable members that will help us build from the ground up.
So, how do we ensure that upwardly mobile couples flow into our worship centers and decrepit oldsters file out? One popular way – and we are beginning to see it everywhere now – is to talk about SEX. We need to show that we are cool with SEXand not like those uptight, arthritic fundamentalists of days gone by.
No more keeping sex between a man and his wife, secretly celebrating the beauty of male and female in the confines of the marriage bed. NO! We will now smear SEX, in great, big, bold fonts on our web pages and church marquees, because we know it will hit home and draw crowds, especially the crowds of young couples with spending money who watch crude TV shows anyway.
We’ll throw in a bare minimum of scripture to make it a bit different from Oprah, and we’ll hold off on the lingerie shows at women's prayer group and Viagra spots in the church bulletins for a few months. We might not perform the Vagina Monologues for a year or so, but we’ll make it clear that we are not like your parents and that we are as open about SEX as the strippers down the street.
   When the congregation is ready, we might introduce a pole dance or two with our interpretive dancers on a Wednesday evening to make it clear just how relevant we are.