Selling It From Behind The Scenes

If I had a dollar for every time I have heard a pastor use the example of a family fighting on the way to church only to walk in the doors and act as if everything was sun shining, birds chirping, angels singing perfect, I would have a whole bunch of money!  It’s always the perfect example.  Most of you speakers out there are taking your shoes and socks off right now because your fingers weren’t enough to count the times you have.  It’s ok.  We still love you.  Now I’m gonna use it.

Recently I was watching a bonus feature on a DVD of one of my favorite shows.  It was a reading of the script for an episode with all the cast, crew and writers in one small room.  The clip was about 45 minutes long.  No fanciness.  No quality transitions.  No music.  No sound effects.  Just a bunch of people all reading the same stack of papers and speaking like their characters.  It wasn’t the most exciting thing in the world and I even realized toward the beginning that I had seen the episode so it wasn’t even keeping my interest because it was new.  But despite all the scaled back-ness I was drawn in.  As a matter of fact the longer I watched the more I liked it.  I started liking the writers, the characters, the narrators, and everyone there.  If possible, this behind the scenes view was causing me to like the show even more.

Now back to the fun and totally not overused example of the arguing family going to church.  What if there was a camera around filming your behind the scenes?  If the average person that you are selling your appearance, attitude, lifestyle, beliefs, etc. saw the behind the scenes bonus feature of your life would they still buy?  What about your job?  Would people still want to use your company if they saw what it was like when the customer isn’t around?  What about your perfect-at-church family?  Your marriage?  What about your church?

Most of us have learned the ability to hide the behind the scenes.  We have deleted it as an option from the DVD of our lives.  But what we don’t realize is that many times the behind the scenes view is actually there.  Maybe not in a feature but it’s there.  We show little signs of what it is like behind the scenes without intending to or even knowing it.  Fortunately as the words to a Shaun Groves song called Welcome Home so accurately describe, our loving God wants to be a part of all of our lives and not just the face of it all.  He is there to help repair, clean and provide that TLC that many of our behind the scenes features need.

How’s your behind the scenes?  Does it draw people in or make them run for cover?