The nature of the comments, and a request for more comments

So, the nature of the first comment yesterday, “People don’t make rational decisions; they make emotional ones. Rational campaigns fail.” is a summary of what Ben Arment took away from a book he was reading written by Facebook’s Paul Adams entitled Grouped: How small groups of friends are the key to influence on the social web (Voices That Matter) If you don’t want to read the book, but are interested this video is pretty interesting.

Now, of course the book and Paul Adams’ view is one of the marketer. He states what retail has known forever, which is why everything from condoms to candy to the latest “As Seen on TV” gadget sits at the checkout line. The goal of the marketer is to sell something, and in the end they just want to make a living.

The second comment, “Calling people to repent of their sin and follow Christ should be a rational decision.” is mine only for the sake of sparking a discussion.

On Facebook my friend Beth commented that to exclude the emotional is not giving Christ all of us, and results in what is only a mental ascent. I think I agree with her evaluation; however, I do not think we lead with the emotional as the marketer may because we do not want to sell a product in order to make a living, but rather we want to help make someone family.

In the end, we do not want the King Size M&M’s to get the same kind of attention that Jesus gets when it comes to choice.

And often I think that is where we can fall short as the Church, because we have reduced “repent and proclaim allegiance to Jesus” to a checkout aisle product push when it should be a timely and time consuming counting of the cost (Luke 14:28).