Right Message, Wrong Delivery
I’m sitting on the second floor of Starbucks in the heart of Chiang Mai, looking out over a public square and the most historic gate of the old city wall. This part of town is overwhelmed by the tourist industry–within a half-mile radius there are dozens of tour agencies and cheap hotels, and bars to suit the night crowd. A few Thai guys shove English-language brochures for the upcoming Thai boxing matches into every white face that walks through the gate. McDonalds is across the street.
Today there’s something going on in the square. A small stage is set up, with a disproportionately large sound system, and a backdrop of red with peoples’ faces on it and graced with a few Thai slogans. Two large floral arrangements of white and pink decorate the otherwise empty plywood stage. Next to it there are two tent canopies set up, with a few more Thai signs, a pile of water bottles and a pile of rice, two tables, and a huddle of Thai people wearing red shirts in the shade, waving paper fans in each other’s faces, looking slightly warm and more than slightly bored. A few mill around, trying to look busy. The speakers are blaring Thai folksy-country music, occasionally interrupted by a man making unintelligible announcements into an off-stage microphone.
I watch the faces of the tourists walking by — some bother to look, and I know the two thoughts they are thinking: 1) “What is that for” and 2) (and perhaps the more important) “Why are they playing that annoying music so loud?”
To the person familiar with Thai language and culture, it all makes sense: the signs say “Donate to help flood relief in the Ayutthaya Province”, and the red theme shows that the project is backed by the current government, coincidentally the political party of choice in Chiang Mai and much of Northern Thailand.
Right message, wrong delivery.
If the signs were in English and the speakers were blaring Lady Gaga and Black Eyed Peas, I wonder how much more money they would receive. (Not that Lady Gaga has anything to do with flood relief, but I doubt the music they’re playing does either.) I haven’t seen anyone, Thai or foreigner, walk up to donate anything. Besides being set up in a foreigner-infested area of town, it’s the middle of the afternoon–a time when Thais aren’t really out roaming around in the sunshine.
But, move this whole shebang to a village just outside Chiang Mai, set it up in front of the Buddhist temple (a.k.a., the center of the community) and next to the morning market, and they’d probably make a killing, music and red shirts and all.
While it’s easy for me as an outsider to see why this method isn’t working, it’s probably harder to see from the inside. My guess is that the volunteers feel like they’re doing their part, making their own merit, building up their own good karma, and so they’ll come help tomorrow, even if they don’t bring in so many donations today.
And I am reminded of the church. How many times do we “do our thing” and try to reach people for Christ, but it comes across so foreign and strange-sounding that people write it off as stupid, incomprehensible, and just wish we weren’t disturbing their otherwise quiet afternoon? Yet we continue to do whatever it is we have always done, because we feel like we are doing our part, it makes us feel good on the inside, and God will see and reward our efforts, no matter how much fruit is actually gathered.
Right message, wrong delivery.
What can we do to make our right message more relevant and hearable? This is the continual question of contextualization–how to make our message desirable, how to make the Good News really and truly good news in our environment. The people collecting donations for flood relief need to ask this question, but the church must ask it all the more. And I am asking myself as I sit here listening to the reverberating tunes of Thai folk music. Will you ask yourself right now?