Church attendances will continue to fall until the Church tunes into rap and pop culture. Imitating supermarkets is the way to halt decline. Two latest recipes for success from cool clerics.
New Directions won’t be beaten when it comes to new thinking. So we’re pleased to bring you our super-survey on why few choose pews. It comes with iPod-friendly headings. Tune in. Drop in or drop out!
Everybody’s Doin’ It – Innit? Going to church to keep up with the Jones’ aint cool when the Jones don’t know where the church is.
Ratner Rap Dissing your own product is a no-brainer as Gerald Ratner found out. Many modern church leaders haven’t.
Location, Location, Location On the move moderns don’t hang out anywhere long enough to get prayer callouses on their knees.
Posh ‘n’ Becks These icons are everywhere but everywhere, yet seemingly never in church. Maybe that dude Tom Cruse will get them God botherin’.
The Many Lives of Brian To make it as a comic, kick Christianity – but not Islam. No way. You think they’re stupid?
Buy One Get One Free If the church thinks punters will keep buying all three of hatching, matching and despatching it’s not on Planet Earth. Give ’em BOGOF at St Botolphs.
The Devil Wears Prada And any other fashion that persuades you guys that he doesn’t exist.
Girls Aloud Church has always been the place for gals rather than geezers. With so many vicarettes now, it’s like a karaoke powder room. No macho cred there.
Where Have All the Vicars (and Coppers) Gone? Time was when you could clock one of the Boys in Blue and Our Man from St Marks down your road. Now neither. Too much paper work? So many yellow vests around now that you don’t know if it’s the Sweeney or the Sewer Gang. Perhaps Our Man has also donned a yellow vest with PC Plod. That’s if he’s a modern cleric and ditched his dog collar and become The Invisible Man.
Candles in the Wind Flower-laying, ribbon-wearing. That’s now the scene big-time.
Alan Edwards