New to FriendlyChristian.com? Check out the FAQ page to learn about the site. Wondering who the heck I am? The My Story page is a great place to start. Thanks for stopping by!
Click here to subscribe via RSS.
Click here to have posts delivered by email.
This message will automatically disappear after your 3rd visit.
I’m a firm believer that a church needs to employ a relevant, fresh, marketing strategy in order to be successful and grow.
“What, that life-changing message of Jesus isn’t enough to attract people?” the argument goes.
No, it’s not. If it was every ‘First Baptist’ church on your street corner would be filled with passionate Christ followers. Right?
So let’s do something we haven’t done in a long time: I’ll ask the question, you guys go crazy with your responses.
What are some of the best, worst, and most creative church marketing strategies that you’ve seen?
(examples: signs, commercials, buildings, methods of broadcasting, preaching styles, environments, music, etc)
Popularity: 5% [?]
Loading ...
Bill:
I think any approach to “church growth” that defins success as the number of people coming to church instead of the number of souls that are being saved, is the wrong approach.
The idea of the church needing to be ‘relevant’ is so misleading. Where does it stop? What is relevant today is not relevant tomorrow. What about the guy who comes to your church because he likes the Aerosmith songs rewritten with Christian lyrics? What happens when that’s not relevant anymore and your church decides to change its approach? Haven’t you just isolated those people who enjoyed what you were doing?
The Gospel of Jesus Christ is relevant enough. What good is it to say that you have 40,000 people attending your church if you can’t name (5) people in the congregation that are truly living the Christian life. Truth should always trump entertainment.
I think that the “church” needs to stop trying to look, feel, and act like the world and start acting like the church. The Bible gives a perfect example of what the Church should look like.
The world can find the self-help groups, yoga classes, coffee shops, book stores, video game parties, sewing classes, and motorcycle clubs (and the list goes on) outside of the church. So why is the church concentrating so hard to be in the entertainment industry when it should really be concerned with where people are going to spend eternity?
Why are we trying to make the world a more entertaining place to go to hell from?
Step 1)
Live a moral life and *when asked* explain that I live my life by these principles and that I belong to so-and-so group. (Atheist version)
Live a “Christ-like” life (except when Christ acted immorally*) and *when asked* explain that I live my life by the principles of the Gospel (except the immoral parts) and that I belong to [insert Christian sect's name] Church
(Christian version)
Step 2) Well.. Do step 1 first and then figure out how to “brand” it.
* I’m thinking about that part will Christ calls a non-Jew a dog. And yes I know the apologetics and no I don’t buy it.
First of all I want to say that Christians get lumped in together by strangers to the faith. That makes you about as attractive as your very worst preacher. That bearded fruit loop on the street corner who smells of old beer and rants about God’s judgment is making an impression on people. The Fred Phelps of this world who spread a message of hate wrapped up in biblical verse are making an impression. Money grabbing televangelists with white hair and blue suits and miracles for sale are making an impression. That impression is negative.
That leaves you with a few choices.
1. Distance yourself from the “crazies”. You get people eschewing the title of “Christian” in favour of “Christ follower” and breaking with the religion but sticking to the faith. Ironically this may very well cause a new type of religion to spring up as an alternative to traditional Christianity.
2. Fight the negative image. I don’t think that constantly saying “We’re not like that” or “Fred Phelps isn’t a real Christian” is an effective way to market your side. You spend so much time and effort combating the negative image that you have no time to put forth a positive image of your own. You are also in danger of making it appear that Christians spend all their time fighting one another.
3. If you can’t beat them, join them. Go crazy. Spread the popular message and ignore the things that you think are important. You go the way of politics and preach what people want to hear to get them to join up. Once you have them then you have an opportunity to change them for the better. of course, this never works. They’ll abandon you in favour of someone who will tell them good news when you start giving them bad news.
4. Lead by example. Don’t evangelise at all. Just help others. People will want to know your secret and that’s when you tell them. This is my favourite but it does mean that identifying Christians is that little bit harder for the rest of us.
5. Be exclusive, not inclusive. Don’t invite people to join you at all. You have the answers and when they are ready to ask the right questions then you’ll be ready to fill them in. Until then, they’re on their own.
crap I hit the enter button
1) yes I’m in a bad mood, and guess what? It has to do with arrogance, religion and the Catholic church.
2) The “Atheist Version” was supposed to have a disclaimer that the Atheism version means any belief system that is predicated on reason and human compassion and not supernatural or divine revelation. Atheism can make no moral statement in and of itself.
Ok, I wasn’t going to blog about it because I’m sure this will bite me in the behind but here.
http://skeptigator.com/2008/03/25/blocked-a-rant/
I’ve always found the idea of church marketing very distasteful. This is something you never heard of in the 70s. I think churches today are much more worldly and less interested in actually following the teachings of Jesus than they are about influencing politics and making money. When ever I hear about church marketing I can’t help but think of Jesus throwing the moneychangers out of the temple.
If the life-changing message of Jesus truly is not enough to attract people, then the churches should admit that and just pack it in and do something else that really does change lives. Really, are they preaching the Gospel or having a popularity contest.
And, yes, that’s exactly the same way I felt about it when I was a Christian.
@ writerdd
Well stated.
i actually agree with Jason, but from an entirely derogative angle;
if the message isn’t good enough, then maybe the message isn’t good enough. no matter how you dress it up.
on the other hand, Islam is growing ever more important in countries such as ’secular’ Egypt precisely because it has become an invaluable asset, and sometimes substitute, to government deficiencies in areas such as entertainment, education and social care. make religion unextractable from core social and cultural expectations and TA-DA! instant faithful masses.