Church advertising written from a believer’s perspective is usually unintelligible to the people it is meant to reach. It references doctrine the unchurched don’t know, uses insider vocabulary that marks them as outsiders, and focuses on what the church wants to say rather than what the unchurched person might actually want to hear.
Warren’s diagnostic: after writing any outreach piece, ask “who is this written to impress?” If the answer is current members (or yourself), rewrite it. The audience is always someone who has no existing reason to trust you or your institution.
Practical tests for unchurched-perspective communication:
- Does it use insider terminology without explanation? (Rewrite.)
- Does it answer a question the recipient actually has, or a question we wish they had?
- If someone who had never heard of the church — or the Unification Church — read this, would they feel invited or confused?
- Does it focus on what they will receive or what we want from them?
The original Saddleback letter addressed felt needs — community, meaning, relevance, family — without religious vocabulary. It made the unchurched reader the subject. That was strategic empathy, not theological compromise.
For MNFC, every piece of outreach communication should pass a simple test: give it to someone who has never been to church and ask them what they understand, what they feel, and whether they’d want to come. Their honest answer is more valuable than any amount of internal review. This applies to social media posts, event invitations, website copy, and Sunday service announcements.