(post withdrawn)

I had never heard of this Southern Baptist Conference called "Bless Every Home." Apparently it uses VERY thorough marketing research, such as compiling demographic information and personal information on every home BEFORE actually meeting the targets and actually inviting them into relationship with Christ.

An ex-Christian wrote this article, which shreds the program mercilessly: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rolltodisbelieve/2021/12/05/bless-every-home-personal-evangelism-done-super-creepy/

Obviously we believers are supposed to bring Christ to a suffering world that desperately needs him. But I wouldn't feel invited if approached this way ... more like "hunted."

I always thought the church is supposed to be "one beggar telling another where he found bread."

( From the other end, here's an ultra-liberal Baptist with his rebuttal: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2016/04/15/left-behind-classic-fridays-no-77-hospitality-vs-sales/ )

Keeping in mind that the "Bless Every Home" critique was written by someone who left the church, have you heard of this tactic? What do you think?

Hello! I'm quite new to the forum and this will be my first post in any edition of this thread. On top of that, I'm also young and inexperienced, not to mention unfamiliar with many religions outside my own. So please forgive me if I say anything wrong or offensive while participating in this discussion (whether now or in the future), and please let me know so I can learn and fix it.

@the-old-maid

I'm not entirely sure how to feel about the "Bless Every Home" program. I haven't read the articles you linked or done research of my own, so this is based only on the information you provided. But what is the purpose of collecting all that information on every home? How does knowing those things help them invite others to come to know Christ? Wouldn't it be simpler and maybe better just to actually get to know the people by meeting them? I don't know, those are just my thoughts.

Welcome @rainyweather  to NarniaWeb, and welcome to the thread nicknamed "the Deep Magic" (the term being borrowed from C.S. Lewis).

Your observations are spot-on. So far, I have noticed "Sales model evangelism" seems to answer them inside-out.

The Lord is not a product to sell, and fellow souls created in God's image are not God's customers. It's true that many people do not know enough about the Lord to "taste and see that He is good." But I doubt that treating people like you're trying to sell them a car will make them hungry for God.

The BEH approach reminds me of an older tactic leveraged against those who already are members in such churches. Specifically, "we have calculated how much you should be tithing or donating to our building fund." (Occasionally there are employers who let the office organizer do that for parties.)

So apparently, this movement is using the "better them than me" hint to "encourage" people to do more door-to-door work.

And I agree that getting to know people is the better approach. I'm having a hard time remembering any of the disciples or apostles who did Marketing Research on the people they preached to.

The closest thing I can think of is when Paul said, "Hello, people of Mars Hill. [LIVING BIBLE TRANSLATION]: I noticed that you are very religious. You even have an altar to "The Unknown God." You have been worshiping Him without knowing who He is, so I came here to tell you about Him."

I certainly don't recall him finding out how much money they made, who lived there, how long they lived there, and how much they could donate if they can be converted.

It's like this BEH figures that Market Research is easier than friendship. Turned inside out, maybe they mean that they think making friends is hard.

Posted by: @the-old-maid

Keeping in mind that the "Bless Every Home" critique was written by someone who left the church, have you heard of this tactic? What do you think?

I hadn't heard of it before, but oh gosh... no, no, no, no and more NO. I would NEVER have become a Christian if someone had tried to proselytise me into it, whether literally door-to-door or in any other way. There are few things that put so many people OFF religion in general, and Christianity in particular, as those who go around trying to talk (or outright browbeat) others into believing. That kind of thing does far more harm to Christianity than good, honestly.

I should add I'm talking as an Australian and naturalised Briton — two cultures where religion simply is not something you talk about publicly, let alone try to get others into, unless you're clearly invited to do so. And frankly (yes, even as a firm adherent myself), I prefer it that way. If I can be blunt here, we tend to look on the evangelical religious culture of the US — what we see of it from the outside, at least — as creepy at best and utterly shocking at worst. That honestly is not how most Christians in most of the rest of the world think and behave. It wouldn't work anywhere else, if indeed it even works in America.

The silly thing about "selling" religion is that few thinking, caring people are going to "buy" it — again, far more are likely to be put off religion altogether by such aggressive tactics. Nobody genuinely becomes a Christian because someone argued them into it, possibly with threats of hellfire for those who don't join the club. It's God who speaks directly to each individual's heart and mind; we can hopefully perhaps help open the way for that to happen to someone, but we can't make it happen, let alone do the speaking for Him. And the people who've taught me the most about what it is to be a follower of Christ have been the ones who simply live "the Way" day to day in every way they can, rather than talking about it. That is what naturally draws others to wonder "What's he/she got?" — and then, God willing, to ask about it.

I can't think of any quote that sums it up better than this one from Madeleine L'Engle:

We do not draw people to Christ by loudly discrediting what they believe, by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely that they want with all their hearts to know the source of it.