“When You Wish upon a Star” is a song written by Leigh Harline and Ned Washington for Walt Disney’s 1940 adaptation of Pinocchio. The original version of the song was sung by Cliff Edwards in the character of Jiminy Cricket, and is heard over the opening credits and again in the final scene of the film.

The song has since become the representative song of The Walt Disney Company. The American Film Institute ranked “When You Wish Upon A Star” seventh in their 100 Greatest Songs in Film History, the highest ranked Disney animated film song, and also one of only four Disney animated film songs to appear on the list. This song also won the 1949 Academy Award.

This is a great song but when I hear it all I think about is Disney Movies, Disneyland and Walt Disney – not M&S!

M&S has very deep pockets so maybe they should have considered having someone write a great original song rather than ride on the coat tails of another legendary company.  Disney must be laughing that a major international company would pay to promote its theme song. Every time I see the advertisement I think of Disney.

I think it shows a tremendous lack of imagination on the part of Marks & Spencer – dull and unimaginative.

Branding is so valuable to a company – every action, every advertisement, every brochure, and every promotion should re-enforce and promote the brand.

Ads that confuse and distract from the brand do real harm, diluting all of the past efforts. No matter how small your business it is important to passionately protect your brand, to avoid confusion and to make certain that every action leverages and strengthens the brand message and position.

St Paul’s has lost the plot. Their PR, which for Byzantine reasons is run from the obscure town of Brough in East Yorkshire by Rob Marshall’s 33rpm, was taken to the cleaners in PR Week a few days ago. Their fake concern about health and safety was exposed as a ploy to get the protesters out in the New Statesman. But worse than that, St Paul’s has lost the Christian plot, the whole reason it is there.

What happened two weeks ago on Ludgate Hill is that people came to church. The protesters turned up at St Paul’s by accident and decided they wanted to stay. There, on the cathedral’s doorstep, they set up camp. And in doing that, they gave the church a new congregation. Here was a fabulous opportunity for St Paul’s to shed a bit of pomp and hauteur, to bring the faith out of doors, to do some services outside, to be a bit spontaneous, to provide the protesters with some spiritual nourishment, to rediscover a connection with ordinary people, to have a conversation.

Lucy Mangan, the Guardian columnist, wrote about this fantasy version of the cathedral with real feeling last week in her piece, St Paul’s – embrace your new flock. ‘These are your people,’ she told the cathedral.

But instead of rising to the occasion, and to huge disappointment, the cathedral’s instinct was to shut up shop and get in the lawyers. It’s hard to think of anything more negative and dispiriting than St Paul’s actually shutting itself down. Christians around the country of all traditions have been left banging their heads against the wall in frustration at the sight of the church behaving so badly.

What makes it worse is that church leaders don’t seem to understand just how epically they are screwing up. (‘Screwing’ isn’t quite strong enough, but this is a family blog.) There was no word in this direction in Dean Knowles’ resignation statement, which was instead full of personal and institutional self-pity. And as Nick Baines knows, the silence of other C of E leaders is a huge let-down for Christians across the country. It’s actually a betrayal in the name of not rocking the boat. The bishops have lost the plot too.

It is hard to imagine Jesus in the Deanery, sherry in hand, consulting his lawyers. On the other hand, it is easy to imagine him in the camp, sitting in a tent, talking to the people who have no voice but who want to find it and be heard.

But beyond Jesus’ compassion and engagement with ignored people, there’s something else. Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple because they filled their own pockets by ripping off the poor. He was angry with them and treated them like the dirt they were. The Occupy London protesters are making the same point about the bankers, but the church, the advertised followers of Jesus, are telling them to shut up, pack up and go home.

With the welcome departure of Dean Knowles, St Paul’s now has an opportunity to reconsider its position and find not merely ‘new leadership’ as the Dean put it, but a new direction. Is it too much to hope that a cathedral could start taking some creative risks for the gospel? If St Paul’s fails to seize the moment, then its mission is lost, and its inspiring building an empty icon.

I’ve always loved St Paul’s – ironically, the church of the tentmaker. I’ve found it a place of wonder and mystery ever since my first visit to London at the age of nine. I believe it can recover its mission, but only if it dramatically changes course. Whether the people now in charge of this glorious architectural Titanic have the imagination and strength to steer it through the icebergs remains to be seen. They deserve our prayers.

For example Bishop Stephen Venner,  who I knew as Bishop of Dover working together with Kent Children’s Trust, now Bishop to the Armed Forces.  He was quoted in The Telegraph as saying that the Taliban “can perhaps be admired for their conviction to their faith and sense of loyalty to each other”.  His comments sparked great debate on what it is to admire something in your enemy.  But more importantly highlighted the issue of a comment being pulled out of context.  Supposedly his comments were from a profile interview done over 12 weeks ago, which wasn’t fully published, and the journalist then used one answer to spark an entire article in a very different context.

Secondly, Father Tim Jones from York, whom the BBC News and many others have reported that he said people should steal from big chains rather than small businesses.  He said society’s attitude to those in need “leaves some people little option but crime”.

I think he was on the line but was he out of order – difficult to say.  Read his full sermon here, don’t just let yourself be influenced by a media soundbite.

To me there are lessons for clergy to learn in how they work with the media, but there are also lessons for us to learn in what do we take as truth from our media.

1. Thou shalt not simply trot out thy usual shtick.
2. Thou shalt dream a great dream, or show forth a wondrous new thing, or share something thou hast never shared before.
3. Thou shalt reveal thy curiosity and thy passion.
4. Thou shalt tell a story.
5. Thou shalt freely comment on the utterances of other speakers for the sake of blessed connection and exquisite controversy.
6. Thou shalt not flaunt thine ego. Be thou vulnerable. Speak of thy failure as well as thy success.
7. Thou shalt not sell from the stage: neither thy company, thy goods, thy writings, nor thy desperate need for funding; lest thou be cast aside into outer darkness.
8. Thou shalt remember all the while: laughter is good.
9. Thou shalt not read thy speech.
10. Thou shalt not steal the time of them that follow thee.

I’ve seen this youtube clip around the web (first on a whole load of facebook profiles) which shows Chris Moyles on his Breakfast BBC Radio Show talking about church.

On Pentecost Sunday he saw a clip of a service from Kingsgate Community Church (Peterborough) singing ‘Oh Happy Day’ by Tim Hughes whilst baptisting loads of people.

Some really positive comments, and most interestingly he keeps on coming back to it, even when the conversation has moved on.  It does highlight how when we say authentic but relevant people are interested.  My hope is that someone, somewhere has the right opportunity to follow this up with Chris more specifically, be it inviting him to church or taking him on something like an Alpha course.