Focus Group Faith

I stayed up tonight to watch an episode of Studio 60. I admit Amanda Peet was part of the reason for tuning in, but the character that drew me in was Matthew Perry's.

The storyline took the ensemble cast through the week leading up to the release of their Saturday Night Live style show, and to a person the cast wrestled with the data leaked from the pre-release focus groups. Everything hung on whether people would like the show. On the show, they did.

Now I haven't seen if this show (Studio 60) about a show did as well in the actual Nielsen ratings, but the whole 'focus group' plot line stirred up some questions about my own (sometimes desperate) efforts to get good ratings.

Millions of TV viewers equate in my early life to the several hundred people in my father's Assemblies of God church in Polson, Montana. From the moment my mom, my sister, and me stepped out of our Renault 16 (horrifically ugly auto, best car seats bar none) on Sunday morning, we were on. Come to think of it, we never really were off. Boxed in at home by church members on either side (the Kleins and the Coverdales) I learned to play for ratings early.

Now I'm not sure I know how not to. How not to instinctively check each of my comments - especially as a pastor - against my sense of my audience. I've scorned politicians for years for their pursuit of poll numbers, and tonight I wonder if that is not in large part due to my own compulsion to post well.

I'm having a hard time coming up with any 'unpopular' positions I've taken in recent memory; oh, certain stands I take may be unpopular to some, but never to whoever I've determined to be my core audience. I've claimed 'faithfulness to the gospel' but now I'm questioning how to untangle that from my own personal version of 'focus group faith.'

Or find a way to truly play to an audience of one.