By Stephen Tomkins
Clever posters, glossy cinema adverts - the church is increasingly adopting the ways of the world in attempting to attract attention to itself. Some say it's the only way to get a message across in modern times. Others say it's sacrilege.
Q. What do scoring the winning goal in a cup final, walking down the catwalk amid flashing bulbs, and climbing to the top of a mountain have in common?
A. They have nothing to do with church.
And if that seems like a bit of a cheat, they also all feature in the first cinema ad for the Alpha Course, the church programme where unbelievers explore Christianity. The punch line is each of these winning role models turning to the camera and asking, "Is there more to life than this?" Alpha Course logo, and then we're on to the main feature.
It perhaps says something about the church's image, or self-image, that it advertises the faith without any mention of God, religion or church.
A similar message comes from a poster ad created recently for (but not by) British churches, the slogan being "Church. Not as churchy as you think." This advertisement is part of a campaign dreamt up by the Fallon agency, as part of the forthcoming Channel 5 programme, Don't Get Me Started.
The idea of the campaign is to persuade non-churchgoers that church is part of modern life. Other captions include: "More dances are held in church halls than in dance halls" and "You have to be a pretty good bloke to let 40 screaming kids and a bouncy castle in your house".
Fallon is the agency that successfully remarketed Skoda in 2000 - "A car that good can't be a Skoda" - and its similarly self-deprecating church ads have been welcomed by church leaders.
Then on Tuesday, the Churches Advertising Network (CAN) launched its Christmas campaign. CAN has created Christmas and Easter advertising for churches since 1991, most famously with the controversial image of Jesus in the style of Che Guevara in 1999, with the caption, "Meek. Mild. As if."
Here again the church was consciously attempting an image makeover, for Christ himself this time. Not everyone liked the new look. The former Conservative MP Harry Greenway called it "grossly sacrilegious", and the Catholic Church in England and Wales pulled out of CAN, questioning the whole idea of putting God in the marketplace: "We haven't got a product to market."
It clearly had enough impact, however, for the 2005 campaign to resurrect the Che Guevara image, though this time, for Christmas, with the face of a small child. "Dec 25. The revolution begins."
Attendance figures
Stephen Parkinson of the Anglican organisation Forward in Faith is not impressed. "I won't say it won't work - but I'm not holding my breath."
He does not agree that billboard marketing necessarily debases the message of the church. "But the naffness of some of these adverts in the past has debased the church - and advertising. Because they've been crap. And attendance figures show they haven't worked."
CAN themselves naturally see things differently. "It's hard to measure the success of such advertising," says John Carter, a trustee, "except by the fact that the number of churches using them has grown steadily.
"We provide radio ads too, which churches pay to put on local or national stations. Last year over 50 stations in Britain carried them. The last thing you expect to hear when you're listening to Kiss FM is someone talking about Jesus, so it has shock value"
CAN hears from churches that the posters have brought people to their Christmas services, but Carter says that bums on pews is not what they are about. "We want to make people question what's behind Christmas, to think about who Jesus was."
He thinks that Christians who find advertising God distasteful misunderstand what advertising is about. "Christian Aid advertises on TV, the government produces ads about smoking and road safety. Ads are not just for people who have a product to sell."
Other organisations that provide ads for churches too, while some churches create there own. The Christian website Ship of Fools has been documenting them since 1998, "because they're so awful", according to the editor Simon Jenkins.
The website's current crop include "Who sits on the throne in your house?" An old favourite from Denver is a billboard ad of Jesus with his arms outstretched saying, "Denver, I love you this much".
"We collect them partly out of mischief," says Jenkins, "but also to encourage churches to stop making an ass of themselves."
He acknowledges some church ads have been good, like the Che Guevara one. "Of course the best advertisement for Christianity is Christians who are thoughtful, sensitive, self-critical. But why not let people know what we're about - as long as it's done with some thought, and not a dreadful pun."
It only remains to add that Christianity is available from all good churches. Terms and conditions apply.
Add your comments on this story, using the form below.
This is quite comic - another one of those gimmicks that church-goers might think is 'cool' but to outsiders has the same air of desperation that characterises much of the church's public-facing work. Also, I can't help but think that if a left-wing revolutionary group were using Christian imagery to promote their messages, the church would be in uproar. Lenin on a cross, anyone?
Keith, London, UK