Branding Yourself

After visiting a friend's house a few weeks ago, I got a text that their daughter had pointed to a bottle on the counter and said, "Look, Scott left something here."

It was not my bottle... it was her mom's bottle.

Know why she thought it was mine?

Branding, baby...

Branding.

See, I've been carrying a reusable bottle (usually stocked with some variation of sweet tea) for years; starting back when we were living in Prague in 2004-05.  At first, I was all about SIGG bottles, but then I switched to Kleen Kanteen and there's an entry about that.

Now, it's ubiquitous. Just over 4 years later, we've got... (please hold while I run downstairs to count them)... 17 of them. And that doesn't count my fave white one I left at TSA in STL on my way to somewhere. Insulated, non-insulated, caps, lids, growlers to bottles to canisters... Kleen Kanteen is our bottle of choice. We've even had them vinyl-wrapped for when we travel (thanks to Russ at AD&B).
 

So, as long as that little girl's been alive, she's seen me with a Kleen Kanteen. Here's the kicker, we don't have the same color or size of her mom's Kanteen. BUT, it's got the logo. And that's what she saw.

And that's all it took to connect that bottle to me.

As soon as I got her text, I immediately thought, "If Kleen Kanteen's my bottle brand, what else am I branding myself as?"

We all have personalities; a brand identity, be they loud or quiet, that we project. It's how we react to the world around us. So, what's your brand? Is it brash, polite, helpful, selfish, open, closed, the list could on and on. Certainly, the shrinks will tell us that our identity varies from what we think we are to what others perceive us as.

Now I'm gonna preach for a minute to the Christians.  What are you projecting on the walls of the lives around you? Are you reflecting His love and compassion or do you simply see the exterior issues and grievances and shut off that Light? Our personality is hardwired, but how we use those innate traits to display His Brand to those around us is a choice we make daily. (Check out Jesus' command about our own cross in Luke 9:23.) The first time the term Christian was used was in Antioch in Acts 11. Our brand name originated because there was distinct connection made by the people of that city to how the followers of Christ acted.

What's your brand of Christianity saying about your Jesus? And is it strong enough that someone else can recognize it?