{"id":39961,"date":"2017-04-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/gospel-is-not-generic-jingle\/"},"modified":"2017-04-17T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-04-17T00:00:00","slug":"gospel-is-not-generic-jingle","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/gospel-is-not-generic-jingle\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gospel Is Not a Generic Jingle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the early 80s, an image campaign began in the city of Atlanta with the hopes of encouraging Atlantans to see their city with pride and hope&mdash;despite some of its darker issues of race relations, violence, poverty, and unemployment. The jingle was endearing, if cheesy, chirping birds in the background and all: <em>There&#39;s a feeling in the air, that you can&#39;t get anywhere &hellip; except in Georgia. I taste a thousand yesterdays and I still love the magic ways of Atlanta<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n<p>All of it was meant to inspire nostalgia, loyalty, and camaraderie&mdash;and to counter all the city&#39;s negative images. Those who remember it speak fondly of the &quot;Hello Atlanta!&quot; song&#39;s ability to highlight Atlanta&#39;s unique brand of urbanism and the pride.<\/p>\n\n<p><em>Makes no difference where I go, you&#39;re the best hometown I know. Hello, Atlanta. Hello, Georgia. We love you on 11 Alive!<\/em><\/p>\n\n<p>The song served as something of an anthem for the city, so much so that Ira Glass featured it on his program <em class=\"citation\">This American Life<\/em>. He interviewed people who remembered the song. And then he completely burst their unique sense of city-pride by playing for them the exact same song and lyrics with &quot;Milwaukee&quot; or &quot;Calgary&quot; substituted out in chorus and pictures. As it turned out, this &quot;image campaign&quot; was a syndicated campaign that took place in 167 different cities worldwide. <em>There&#39;s a feeling in the air, that you can&#39;t get anywhere, except &hellip; fill in the blank<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n<p>The Bible does not give us an <em>image campaign<\/em> about God&#39;s good news. It is not meant to play on a sense of nostalgia for generic people and places. The promise of the gospel is for particular people in particular places. And this good news can be for you today.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3390,3537,3538,3622,3768,3853,3897,4070,4078,4085,4096,4134,4212,4280,4691,5212],"tax_ctp_topics":[],"class_list":["post-39961","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-advertising","tax_ctp_tags-call","tax_ctp_tags-calling","tax_ctp_tags-citizenship","tax_ctp_tags-destiny","tax_ctp_tags-election","tax_ctp_tags-evangelism","tax_ctp_tags-gods-choice","tax_ctp_tags-good-news","tax_ctp_tags-gospel","tax_ctp_tags-great-commission","tax_ctp_tags-heaven","tax_ctp_tags-image","tax_ctp_tags-invitation","tax_ctp_tags-predestination","tax_ctp_tags-uniqueness-of-christ"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Gospel Is Not a Generic Jingle - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/gospel-is-not-generic-jingle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Gospel Is Not a Generic Jingle - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the early 80s, an image campaign began in the city of Atlanta with the hopes of encouraging Atlantans to see their city with pride and hope&mdash;despite some of its darker issues of race relations, violence, poverty, and unemployment. 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