By Rajmund Dabrowski
“Find your voice, shout it from the rooftops, and keep doing it until the people that are looking for you find you.” —Dan Harmon
John Hunt is a recognized author and advertising guru. His claim to fame is as co-creator of a partner company with the TBWA advertising agency whose international success is driven by the mantra, “Life’s too short to be mediocre.” What he has to say seems at once poignant and challenging to many a Seventh-day Adventist church member, leader, and communicator (in that order): We don’t know what we don’t know until we do what we don’t usually do.1
Mr. Hunt’s comment brings me to an unrealized vision from more than a decade ago—one from which some of us are yet to wake up. The vision has to do with an intentional focus (one would hope and assume) on improving the public perception of our church.
This was rekindled in my mind by a recently exposed public image perception Seventh-day Adventism has in the United States. In spite of efforts by the church, recognition of who we are apparently had to be prompted by the presidential bid staged by Dr. Ben Carson, a renowned neurosurgeon and a member of our church. Religious identity issues were similarly addressed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) when Gov. Mitt Romney was running for the presidency of the United States in 2012.2
I’d like to start a conversation about how we can approach our public image. Are we ready to be frank about our own self-assessment? How should we approach the need to be seen as a group of people who are worth getting to know? The result of answering these questions is that the Good News about Jesus Christ will be better known.
Are we actually in the marketplace? Seventh-day Adventists may not be as affluent and politically minded as other faith communities, but we have our own successes. We seem to be doing rather well in our splendid isolation, seeing some growth in mission, while resorting to moaning about our poor public perception.
Don’t you cringe when someone confuses your religious affiliation with that of someone else?
Adventists are mostly absent where others are present in engaging the public with their causes. To start with, by clinging largely to a view that this world will soon end, we are equally timid at “shouting from the rooftops.”
As members of society, all of us have similar communication tools at our disposal. These methods are actually neither sacred nor secular. The content and what propels our communication is different. For Seventh-day Adventists, the apocalyptic in its varied expressions, we argue, is the coin to spend. Yet our communication efforts and the attractive and persuasive messaging required are relegated to the “tried and true” methods that worked before, but are effective no longer. The world and its marketplace continue to move on and old ways of communication are left behind. But how ready is the church to jump into the notoriety created and required by contemporary media?
You and I are participants (or at least observers) in the era of new communication and its technological advancement. Religion has not disappeared from the social realm and media jumps on religion with gusto. Religious words that once were carefully considered, and the name of God, which was held in reverence, now seem to be, at best, ignored and all too often ridiculed. Christian churches, when they speak, are hardly listened to, except when they are prompted to react to some wrongdoing. Religious verbiage spoken by religionists is not understood and the fact that one uses many religious words does not mean one is held in awe. Religious media is craving to be relevant, yet today’s audience wants simplicity—show me what you believe, but don’t overwhelm me with your talk.
We need to step forward, forsaking timidity, and engage content development with a clear identity and media messaging focused on the future. The media is already there. In the marketplace. He who is not present, a proverb says, is not right.
Going back a few decades, I recall a meeting in the office of an ambassador whose windows were overlooking St. Peter’s Square. At some point in our conversation, he pointed to a timely difference Adventists represent in a religious marketplace. You are a contemporary Christian community with a message the world is searching for, I heard him say. We are all dealing with issues of living safer, better, healthier lives, and we all need hope, he continued. Then he added, “But, you are timid about it. Why?” Such was his opinion about us, a group claiming to be a people of hope. He obviously valued the messages which Seventh-day Adventists hold as true and lasting. Among the lessons I drew from that conversation was that we might just have a problem with our own identity as a church. Moreover, what we do have, we keep largely to ourselves.
In my view, Adventist identity increasingly goes beyond its Millerite roots. Designating Adventism as a homemade variety of Christianity in America, Paul K. Conkin, professor of history at Vanderbilt University recognizes a tension in knowing who we are. He writes rather favorably about our church’s growth and mission.
Regarding our beliefs, Conkin states that Seventh-day Adventists seem very close to the Christians Paul addressed in Thessalonica in the early days of Christianity, and close to the apocalyptic expectations of Jesus and his disciples.3 But, in his well-researched thesis, American Originals, he describes the struggles of the church’s founders to establish Seventh-day Adventism’s distinct identity. He writes, “One tension that has been most basic and enduring involves Seventh-day Adventist identity.”4
This very issue seems quite enduring for Adventist communicators. Many a church functionary is eager to connect our identity with the group that came before us—the Millerites. This is done at the cost of defining us today. In dealing with such questions as “Who are you?” many a communicator will roll out a list of comparisons or differences with other religious groups, thus giving a license to declare that in this or that we are special, unique or distinct. Some- how this distinctiveness has yet to release dividends in image clarity or greater interest from the public.
It is hardly useful to generalize. There are many examples of individuals and communities making a difference, creating change, and responding well to the mission objectives of Adventism. In the area of name recognition and public relations, there are parts of the globe where Seventh- day Adventists are actively improving the church’s public perception and they seem to know how it works.
In Australia, communicators know how to enter the PR game and begin by engaging with communication experts, as well as by identifying an audience for specific communication. No wonder that the Aussie Adventist communicators are attempting mainstream social discourse when their brightest communicators aim at employing imagination and creativity. The conference, “Manifest: Our Call to Faithful Creativity” brought together a dozen artists, communicators and media experts to dream and act.
One other Aussie innovation is in the area of research. Several times over the years, our church in Australia has probed the public perception of Adventism. Similar research was done years ago in the U.S. We can hardly build a credible assessment of how others see us based on anecdotes.
We seem to rely on wishful thinking, based on a “we know the answers” attitude. We have a few relatively well- known examples of Adventism that may lull us into complacency. AWR is a well-known brand among those who follow religious radio broadcasting. Loma Linda University and Oakwood University score public recognition, and we smile at being recognized, even if only in small and local doses.
If communication were taken seriously, image-building would be an asset to everything else we do. In Poland, in the 1980s, the public-interest issues of social pathologies were explored with a media-rich communication intentionality that brought rich results.
Just a few years ago, in Romania, the church took on Biblical illiteracy in this Christian country and used the traffic-heavy streets to invite citizens to discover what the Holy Bible is. Ads were everywhere.
A somewhat different example comes from Jamaica. There, the church was challenged by the national media to be on top of the PR game of being prominent. A known newspaper publisher-editor stated that Seventh-day Adventists have graduated from a minority to the largest faith group on the island. “What are you going to do about it?” he asked. “You are now in the driver’s seat and we will be look- ing toward you to be a leading moral voice,” he added.
Apart from stressing the apocalyptic themes throughout our history, Conkin states: “It is worth noting that no other American-based denomination has ever attempted to transform itself so fully into a worldwide fellowship. No other American-based denomination has turned so fully to modern communication technology, including the use of the Internet.”5
It is one thing for us to recognize our own importance; another when others offer an appraisal of how they see us. In 2012, the church celebrated the 100th anniversary of Seventh-day Adventist corporate communication. It may be well to recall Ellen G. White’s forceful communication counsel. She was known to favor newness in the way the church approaches communication efforts. She commented that, “The character and importance of our work are judged by the efforts made to bring it before the public. When these efforts are so limited, the impression is given that the message we present is not worthy of notice.”6
This founding leader of the church stressed the relevance and importance of caring about what we say, how we say it, and how we listen to the world. In another statement, Ellen G White states that, “We should remember that the world will judge us by what we appear to be.”7
Our brand may be clear; our communication, however, is timid, resulting in part from our lack of clarity over our identity. Our message lacks public relevance due to a preoccupation with communication that primarily focuses on discussing the past, and messages geared mostly at ourselves rather the general public.
Ellen G. White also wrote:
Truth will be made so prominent that he who runs may read. Means will be devised to reach hearts. Some of the methods used in this work will be different from the methods used in the work in the past; but let no one, because of this, block the way by criticism.8 In one of his books, Paul Arden of Saatchi & Saatchi, wrote: “Your vision of where or who you want to be is the greatest asset you have.”9 To translate his comment so that it applies to Adventist mission, we could simply say, “Adventism is the opportunity we already have.”
In Arden’s parlance, “When it can’t be done, do it. If you don’t do it, it doesn’t exist.” Today’s generation knows this. This generation is not ashamed to articulate it. Just observe what is on display on Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, those relational social communities. Those who “live” there also seem to be saying: If your present is expressed in the past, it will not be found in your future.
Whether a new communication strategy for the Adventist world church will replace the current one,11 there will continue to be a need to try out new creative approaches to improving church awareness in society, globally and locally.
The vision statement the world church agreed on two decades ago continues to offer a useful point of reference for branding efforts or for relevant communication programs: Seventh-day Adventists will communicate hope by focusing on the quality of life that is complete in Jesus Christ.
Is our brand hope? Principles of the Adventist faith notwithstanding, is there a present in Adventist identity? Or is it locked in a formula from the past which was never intended to last forever? In the words of a musician Peter Gabriel—“As always, the rest is up to you.”
This article was adapted from “Adventist Present [Media] Truth—a Vision to Be Realized,” originally published in Spectrum, 12 December 2011.
Notes:
1John Hunt, The Art of the Idea, and How it Can Change Your Life, (New York: powerHouse Books, 2009), 115.
2 Campaign Trail,” New York Times, November 17, 2011. Laurie Goodstein, “Mormons’ Ad Campaign May Play Out on the ’12
3 Paul K. Conkin, American Originals, Homemade Varieties of Christianity, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 145.
4Ibid, 138.
5Ibid, 144.
6Ellen G. White, Evangelism (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 1946), 128.
7Ellen G. White, Testimonies for the Church Vol. 6 (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing, 1948), 397.
8 Ellen G. White, Evangelism (Hagerstown, MD: Review and Herald, 1946), 129, 130.
9Paul Arden, It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be, (London: Phaidon Press, 2003), 4.
10 Ibid, 46.
11“Seventh-day Adventist World Communication Strategy—Report” was adopted at 1995 General Conference Session, Utrecht, Netherlands. Implementing what was to be known as “The Hope Strategy,” it identified tasks for the church on all levels and through institutions.
Rajmund Dabrowski is RMC communication director and editor of Mountain Views.