Chris Busch rocks. This guy has such a fresh and insightfulview on life, business and church.  He has done it all, biz consultant, entrepreneur, investment advisor, pastor, school teacher and basketball coach. Currently Chris is the Exec VP for BMC Advertising (www.bmcadv.com) specializing in direct response marketing and media. I highly recommend learning more about Chris at www.chrisbusch.com

What’s Working? – Rawthenticity.
 

I did a stint as a high school Bible teacher at a local Christian school back in the late nineties so I could afford to also work as a pastor at a small local church. My first semester was one of the most painful and beneficial experiences of my life. For the most part, it took me that semester to find out why my students didn’t pay much attention to me when I went into “teaching” mode. Actually, I became the student and my students became the teacher. 

And they taught me two important lessons about reaching them and about the essence of the emerging culture –

Be relevant
Be authentic 

I call the combination of these traits Rawthenticity. 

Some observations about relevance –

• Each of us is somewhat irrelevant to at least some segment of the population. You choose (by intention or default) those you target for relevance.
• Many people haven’t had the teachers (or have ignored them) that I did to alert them to their own marginal relevance. Find some.
• Listen to your target audience, be it business, church, education. . .  It’s the only way to stay relevant.
• No one is relevant to every one, but you can adjust your thinking to be relevant to the culture as a whole and to your target audience specifically.
• Relevance is all about the way you think. That can change if you want it to. 

A few thoughts about authenticity –

• In this context, being authentic requires a willingness to be transparent in your dealings with others. You’re the same “on stage” and off. Your words and behaviors are synomic.
• A person who is bad but honest about it is preferred over the person who pretends to be good.
• Being authentic is the cornerstone of being relevant.
• Credibility is the currency of the culture. 

Our agency deals a lot with Christian media (radio, television, web, etc.). In my opinion, most Christian media (especially broadcast) has been designed to be relevant primarily to those who could financially support the broadcast. This paradigm has led to the proliferation of much of what we see and hear via the airwaves today.

But, as Bob Dylan penned and sang decades ago, “The times, they are a-changin’.” As the impact of “reality TV” hurtles through our culture, it’s a good time to ask why it is so popular (even though I question the ‘reality’ handle in many cases).

Organizations need to enlist some credible critics to help them find their blind spots and become rawthentic. It’s an exciting time to be alive if you catch the train. 

There’s more to be said. Click the ‘comments’ and say it.