Cleaning Supplies and Youth Ministry (Huh?)

If you want a breath of fresh air (literally) check out method. sometime. method. is a company that makes cleaning products that are non-toxic and easy on the environment. Big deal, you may say. Why talk about this on a youth ministry blog? Good question. But hang with me for a minute. . .

I think method.'s products are pretty great. But it's their approach to messaging and marketing that I think is instructive for us.

If you go to their site, you'll immediately realize something's different. See what I mean for yourself by clicking below (Watch the video. It's amazing). . .

Their messaging and design is quirky, stylish, and fun. Their marketing is way more fun that informative. When you interact with their website and advertising, you immediately form an impression about their company.

They didn't ask any of the tired questions other cleaning supply companies ask. They approached selling their products from a completely fresh perspective. First and foremost, method. communicates their values. My hunch is that the goal is for consumers to be drawn to what the company stands for.

Their messaging leads consumers to engage with them on the level of who they are not what they do.

Man, can we learn from this, or what!? I believe every youth worker out there wants his or her ministry to be be about Jesus. And I believe we are in a lot of ways. But I don't think we always approach our message from this place.

I think many times we communicate to students, intentionally or not, that their involvement in our ministries should be about entertainment. "Come to Wednesday nights and have a killer time with your friends!" I think we want our ministries to be effective at making disciples. And I think many are. But a lot of youth ministries are saddled with structures that aren't conducive to making disciples. Like pretty much every other "non-method." cleaning supply company out there, we do it the way it's always been done, even as we sense there are more effective ways.

What if we truly communicated our "values" in everything we did?

What if the way we talked about our ministries to students and their parents was Christ-centered? What if our "messaging" was Gospel focused? What if our communication to students put less emphasis on entertainment and more on encountering God?

What if we looked at our structure with fresh eyes?

What if we said, forget the way it's always been done . . . How can we structure our ministries in a way that cuts to the heart of what we are trying to do, even if it means abandoning the way it's always been done?

method. has made an impact because they threw out old models that didn't communicate their vision or effectively meet the needs of their people.

Not a bad place for us to start . . .