I was reflecting the other day on what it means to be a Christian.  Technically speaking, you don’t have to do an awful lot to get to heaven.  You just have to admit that you get stuff wrong and believe that Jesus died for you in order to solve this.  I sometimes think about this and wonder why we should therefore go to so much effort to be good, to be nice, to serve God, to try hard and to battle with things all the time.

Recently I have been working on a branding project.  The initial brief was to re-package some fairy ordinary products.  This would have been sufficient for the requirements of the client, but I was  able to ask questions such as “who are these being marketed to?”, “How much are they selling for?” “How are these being sold?” in order to ascertain the potential success of the product range.  The fact was, that by applying what was just a new package, the product would maintain a low level of success and have little or no room for expansion.  It was a business model, but a limited one, that would drift on and off the shelves.

My solution was to create an identity or effectively, a whole brand for the product, in order to create a USP.  By giving the product a brand, it has given it the potential to expand way beyond just the initial range of products.  It will create avenues to sell it in shops rather than just wholesale, it could go on TV, online, in educational establishments etc.  The route to market is stronger because of its perception and positioning and therefore although the effort and investment is much greater, the profits will be tenfold, all being well.

I was thinking about this in relation to the biblical parable where a master gives his servants money whilst he goes away.  The lazy servant buries the money so that he can just give back what he owes upon the master’s return.  The wiser servants invest and make more money by making decisions etc.  The meaning of this story is simple.  Jesus has given us a gift (forgiveness for our sins, eternal life).  We can either take this gift and bury it, so that upon his return, we just have the initial sum (ourselves) to give back.  This would be cowardly and lazy, but nonetheless ‘ok’.  OR, we can invest the gift by sharing it with others.  When the master returns, we can give back the sum (ourselves) with others added to it.

Challenging.