Gordon Cheng - 24 June 2008 01:53 PM

That doesn’t mean you kow-tow to market demand, but where the brand-name is causing significant difficulties, best to drop it.

Gordon,

The term ‘Anglican’ helps me greatly in my ministries of sharing Jesus with friends at work and other places because, for most of the Sydney (unchurched) people I talk to ‘Anglican’ means ‘not a cult’ and ‘mainstream’.

It could be a factor more of the people I associate with then anything else, but being Anglican helps me. I can see, however, that it won’t help everybody.

The answer is, then, to learn from Coca Cola who have umpteen dozen brands & styles but it is still a drink they are selling.

James

I know what you mean, James. Here in Sydney, the name ‘Anglican’, whilst not always receiving positive response, gains useful conversations. I would be loath to give it up on a marketing hunch.

Further afield—Bathurst, Newcastle, Melbourne, Perth, New Zealand...I would say there would be a strong argument for experimentation.

But we’re not restricted to just one approach, anyway. It seems to me the grave mistake we fall into is saying ‘No, no, you started Anglican, you must stay Anglican!!’ or the opposite error, ‘You started non-denominational, you must never become denominational!’