Soon Beefeater will be no more. A few years ago, this would have perhaps generated more grief for us. For much of the early days of our marriage, the restaurant chain provided a convenient, reliable dating option. Although a little more expensive than a Weatherspoon’s or Harvester, it wasn’t too expensive and as Sarah has some food allergies, we found them to be dependable and consistent.
However, to be honest, we rarely eat at Beefeater. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, there isn’t one near us. It would be quite a trek. Secondly, there are other options out there that offer a similar, if not better option than Beefeater. Those chains and independent restaurants often offer things that Beefeater doesn’t such as indoor play areas for the kids.
It has been noted that whilst Whitbread have blamed the closure of their restaurant chains on the economy and tax changes. We cannot ignore that. I’m not going to get into the rights and wrongs of different tax policies here but politicians need to be aware that there are consequences to their decisions. There’s no such thing as a pain free tax increase of spending cut. However, I’ve picked up on other commentators observing that this is only part of the story anyway. In particular, it has been noted that Whitbread attempted to diversify. I can see that, What really was the difference between Table Table, Brewers Fayre and Beefeater.
Secondly, I would observe that there was a loss of consistency. You know what you were getting with Beefeater but a few years back, they attempted to change some of the restaurants to offer a classier kind of dining experience. The experiment failed. I don’t think they attracted new customers and they probably lost old ones. Remember that quality is not to do with how deluxe something is. It’s about consistency and reliability.
Now, here I think is the main lesson for churches. Beefeater, like other brands before it was one of those mainstays of English life. We couldn’t image life without a brand that had been around for over 50 years. We thought it was too big to fail, too established to fall. Yet no brand is immune from either market forces or the decisions of its owners.
Church is of course not about market forces. However, at times we can fall into the trap of treating it like a brand. We also presume that our particular brand, whether that’s a local church, a micro network or denomination is too big, too well known, too established to fail. Many churches have made the same mistake through history. In fact Jesus sent letters to various churches including one that thought it was alive, thriving and could not fail. Those churches are no longer here today.
The reality too is that if we treat church as a brand and try to market it then then time will come when people lose interest. We will discover that there is always somewhere bigger, livelier etc.
Jesus has not promised to build your church or your brand. He has promised to build His Church.
Faithroots 