What Churches and Christians Can Learn from WestJet

By now, I'm sure you've seen the WestJet Christmas Miracle video.  If not, take a moment to see a pretty special scene.  We'll be waiting afterward with some tissues for you:

It's awesome moment, isn't it?  It's beautiful, generous, and kind.  And people wonder if there is such a thing as beautiful, generous and kind anymore.  It's also genius marketing.  The power of that marketing is this.  When the time comes for you to fly, especially if it's into, out of, or around Canada...I'll bet you check on WestJet's flights.  And that's all they can hope for.  If it fits your price or schedule, you might pick them.  But what their generosity and hard work have done is put in our minds that WestJet is worth checking out.  They have given WestJet a good name in the cyber-world by this extreme act of Christmas cheer.  And there's a lesson in there for Christians and churches.

• We need to be generous to outsiders.  Churches often want to make money for their mission trip to a foreign country by the yearly BBQ in which they expect the community to buy it for $6/plate.  This sends the perception that the church exists to bleed the community of already strapped resources so they can fund ministries which their people are interested in.  Same thing with a car wash or yard sale.  What if we had a BBQ and gave it away and fed the community?  What message does that send?  This kind of mindset will cost money.  It's expensive to be generous to outsiders.  I happen to think people's souls are worth it.
• We need to give Jesus and the Church a good name.  Too often we are guilty of actions that give Jesus and His Church a BAD name because of scandals and sin.  More often, though, we are obsessed with results.  We want an outreach event to immediately produce increased attendance.  That can't be the goal because it's short-sighted and uncontrollable.  But, we can guarantee that we give God a good name, and we can do that on a consistent basis through our ministry in, with and to the community.  If we do that long enough, we give our local church a good name.
• We need to embrace the power of recommending.  How many people will recommend WestJet to a friend now?  What about the people that were on that flight?  We need to understand that we can't get people to turn to God and come to church.  What we can do is be in the business of recommending that this church might be the kind of church that they might be interested in.  We CAN help people say to themselves, "You know, if I ever DID go to church, I think I'd go to that one."  And, the vision is even bigger than our local context.  Our goal is to help people turn to Jesus so that people say, "If I ever did need help, I think I'd turn to the God of those people who always do so much in our community."
• We need to not be fair.  What if WestJet had spent the same amount of money and discounted ever ticket for holiday travelers by $5?  That would have been more fair.  Would you have watched that video and pretended you weren't crying at work?  Radical hospitality and outreach are key to giving God a good name and raising awareness of God's goodness.  Jesus didn't heal everyone.  He healed some, and word spread that God was on the move.
• We need to tell stories of hope.  What if this had not been videoed?  We've got to find ways to share stories of the good things the Church is doing in the community.  If people don't see and hear the stories, we missed the opportunity for it to impact them.  And do you think these people will ever forget what happened to them?  What will be their story?  They'll tell this story forever.  When we reach out in radical generosity, we create stories that people will tell for generations.
• We need a plan.  This flight.  These people.  This is what we're doing.  That was WestJet.  Whether it is one person we're going to invest our lives in personally or one community that we're going to love on as a church.  We need a plan to express kindness and love.  For WestJet, that took one flight, but it was laser-focused.  For us, that plan might take years.  We can be an example of God's love to a few, over and over again.  That's not manipulative, it's smart.  Jesus said to be smart (as wise as serpents).  It's just saying, "This is my spot where I want to make sure that we're doing it right."  That means we need strategies.  WesJet had a plan

Let's be churches that radically love our community.  Let's be people that ooze generosity and hope.  After all this is too important.  We're not selling airline tickets.  We're giving away Life.