HippoChurch

Just finished reading Made to Stick by Chip & Dan Heath. One of my favorite takeaways was the “Curse of Knowledge”, defined this way - “Once we know something we find it hard to imagine what it was like not to know it. Our knowledge has ‘cursed’ us. And it becomes difficult for us to share our knowledge with others, because we can’t readily re-create our listeners’ state of mind.”

Hello! Of course, we’re “blessed” with our knowledge of Christ, but does that scenario ever plague the Church. They’re speaking from a marketing perspective and the difficulty of getting your message across when you have expert knowledge of the product or subject matter, and you need to explain its importance and benefit to a market of novices that are unaware. Obviously, I’m not suggesting we change truth in order to “sell” Christ, but the principles of what they describe translate so well to a recurring struggle the Church has in getting the message of Christ across.

How does this happen? Why do we, with such personal experience of God’s amazing grace and mercy, do such a poor job of explaining it in an intriguing way to the world who needs to know it? Why does the “Curse of Knowlege” strike us so sharply? Well, as a church staffer for 6 years now, I’ll just go ahead and personally admit that my world of friends and contacts are overwhelmingly Christian. It wasn’t always that way, certainly not when I was still in the corporate world, but it’s just evidence of the natural tendency for us to surround ourselves with people who either “do” something similar to us or share similar views. I’m just acknowledging that as a natural human tendency, not singling out Christians for indictment, but it does have implications that the Church has to be aware of and fight against in order to keep from coming off as just another organization full of “experts” trying to sell their product, message, viewpoint, etc. Here are some implications off the top of my head:

1. Find some non-church staff, marketing firm, or someone outside your organization to run your external communications by.
2. If you have some new Christians in your midst, involve them (not to mention, honor and activate them) by asking them how the message might have landed with them before they took that recent step of faith or with some of the unchurched friends they still have.
3. Use plain language and appeal to common experiences we all share vs. “church speak”.

I’m sure there are plenty more good suggestions. What would you say?