Here’s the deal with freaks and geeks: I love them because I am one. I play Civilization IV. I go to the comic book store now and again. I TiVo Battlestar Galactica. I listen to Belle & Sebastian, Neutral Milk Hotel, and Hem. I’m a Mac switcher. Hell, I even blog.

So I’ve been asking myself, what would it look like if the halls of my congregation were filled with more of my people? What would it take to reach them? What would they gain from being a part of us? And what we would we gain in return?

We don’t blanch at the idea of targeting Cultural Creatives—or from thinking of ourselves as Cultural Creatives—so I don’t think we should blanch at targeting freaks and geeks—or from thinking of ourselves as freaks and geeks.

I’d even bet that there are more freaks and geeks out there than Cultural Creatives, even in Cambridge. And then there are the freaks and geeks masquerading as Cultural Creatives.

I’m not actually proposing that we market ourselves as a freakshow, and I don’t think we need to do UUism differently on their behalf. I just think that there are a lot of UUs-who-don’t-know-it in that demographic, and I was once one of them.