Just Do It
After laying off 20% of its workforce and losing a huge chunk of its market share to archrival Reebok a year earlier, in 1988 Nike launched an ad campaign with the simple slogan: “Just Do It.” The message was lean, powerful, and direct and featured professional and amateur athletes grinding away toward their accomplishments. The consumer was left with the impression, “If these athletes can do it, so can I,” and anything can be accomplished with grit, determination, and passion if I “Just Do It.” The ad campaign was hugely successful, and within 10 years, Nike’s market share went from 18% to 48% and sales from 877 million to 9.2 billion.
While the idea behind this ad campaign came from an unlikely source—killer Gary Gilmore’s last words before an Utah firing squad, the ad campaign could have been inspired by events roughly 2,000 years earlier.
Last week in our Wednesday night bible study at Grace, we studied the passage from Mark where Jesus first sent out the twelve apostles. (Mark 6:7-12) As Matthew makes clearer in his recount of this event, in sending out the apostles, Jesus intends the Twelve to be an extension of Himself. When He sends them out, Jesus provides simple, direct instructions: “Take nothing for the journey, except a staff—No bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic.” (Mark 6:8-9) The clear import of Jesus’s directions was that no further preparation was necessary, no time needed to get ready, just go or “Just Do It.” God will provide.
Our mission is not unlike the apostles. We, too, are commissioned to spread the good news and make disciples of others. Yet, we often fail to “Just Do It.” Rather than simply doing it, we have become too accustomed by our experiences in large, “programmatic” churches to letting the paid staff do it for us. I can only imagine what it would have looked like if we were the Twelve being sent out by Jesus from a contemporary, American, programmatic, “big church.” If we did not pay for someone to do it for us, first, a committee would have to be established to “discern” what Jesus really meant. Of course, subcommittees would need to be formed to develop the itinerary, secure the funding (with a fund raising campaign), book the travel and lodging arrangements, etc. We would all go out and buy clothes and accessories just specially suited for the trip. Finally, we would have to coordinate our calendars to ensure that we picked a week or two in the future that did not interfere with our business commitments and family vacations and was “mutually convenient” for everyone. Maybe months or years later, we might do it.
The Trellis and the Vine: The Ministry Mind-Shift that Changes Everything, by Collin Marshall and Tony Payne, is a thought-provoking book that identifies the problem of churches having too much trellis (being too programmatic) and too little vine (disciple-making). While some church structure is necessary and appropriate, it is my hope for Grace Church that we do not become a church where we rely on our minister and paid staff to do everything for us (and we, in turn, become merely “consumers”), but we become a church where everyone, as a family of faith using his or her individual gifts, is active and participating in the life and ministry of the church. Jesus’ directive to us is simple: Spread the good news and make disciples. (Matt. 28:19). All we need to do is “Just Do It.”
Carter