Things that make you go… “Cringe”
Leanne and I recently visited Western Australia for the first time and although it was a short stay we had a great time and experienced only a very small part of what Western Australia has to offer so will endeavour to go for a longer trip at another time.
While we were away we did watch a little bit of television, not too much, but we did keep up with the news and there was an Ashes Test going on. I’m conscious that when we watch TV these days we rarely, if ever watch TV live. The shows we watch including news & for me some sport, we set them to record and so we do watch very few commercials because we can “fast forward’ through them. Like most people, we do have streaming services to watch what we want to watch when we want to watch them, all commercial free. While we were away we didn’t have the luxury of our usual technology set up to record the morning news or the evening news or the sport & so when we turned on the TV we not only got our news and sport, we got the commercials.
I particularly noticed when we were in Margaret River, regional Western Australia, something about the commercials. Of course we had the commercials from the big corporations and organisations that were slick and well produced. Campaigns and messages that I was familiar with and, even though I may not have seen the actual commercial, I’d seen their imaging and heard their messaging in other mediums like online or in newspapers or on the radio. But there was another type of commercial that we experienced over there that caught my attention. It was the commercials for the local business, maybe a car dealer, a farm supplies company, a retail outlet or other local trader. I was surprised at my response to these commercials… they mostly made me cringe.
Now it’s not like I haven’t seen these types of commercials before, I remember them from growing up in the Hunter Valley or on the Mid North Coast of NSW or in Newcastle. They generally are low budget especially compared to the big corporations but that’s not what makes me cringe. It’s the over the top, trying too hard personality or voice that seems to be the catalyst for my cringe response. I’m sure you’ve seen these types of ads… but I hadn’t noticed them for ages… I turned to Leanne at one point and said “it’s like we’ve been transported back 20 years”…
When experiences like this happen in my life, I do what “normal” people probably don’t do that often, I think about the church… and it wasn’t long before I started thinking… I wonder what the Church does & what Christians do, that makes people cringe…
The way we act, the way we talk, the idiosyncrasies we have… I’m sure lots of these types of things could make people cringe… but then I thought no, we’re living in a world where it’s sometimes ok to be a different, weird or quirky, why can’t the Church and Christians be a little bit different, weird or quirky… I think the world would expect that we were.
Then it hit me… the reason these ads grate on me so much and make me cringe is not because the person on them is being different, weird, quirky or trying to be funny. It’s because they lake authenticity.
The over the top voice, the exaggerated behaviour, the loudness of the commercial, it’s all designed to grab our attention and I do get that it’s a marketing ploy. A ploy that does work because I can still remember a car ad from my childhood in Sydney where a man in a super annoying voice would scream at the end of the ad: “up the Windsor Road from Baulkham Hills and let me do it right for you!”
But is that how Christians should be getting the attention of those outside the church? I would suggest no. Authenticity is not only prized by this current generation, it is valued by God. God calls us to be our real and authentic selves, not perfect, not a caricature, not extreme… just who we were created to be, even if we are a bit different, weird or quirky… and then God adds to that authenticity the power and work of the Holy Spirit and what is produced is a Godly authenticity in our lives that I believe is far more compelling than extreme actions, behaviour, comments, opinions and lifestyles. Sometimes God calls us to the extreme but that is always, in my experience and humble opinion, with and within a sense of personal and God inspired authenticity.
I wonder if we can start to filter and ask the question, what is it about our church and our lives that could make others cringe because we’re over the top, trying too hard, and just wanting to get noticed? What is it about our church and our lives that lacks authenticity?
We have been talking a bit about generosity lately. I actually think one of the most generous things you can do for others and for God, is to be your humble authentic self. When we are that’s something God can work with!
Have a great week!
Stewart