Is Church marketing dead? Nope, just stuck on stupid!

There's no getting around it, despite the efforts of many to teach, rebuke, correct & train in righteous web design, there still exists a great cloud of witlessness when it comes to the Church's presence online. A fact painfully corroborated by the persistent body of ‘kitsch‘ out there that distracts, annoys and otherwise drives-away people seeking and/or serving the Lord.

WHOOOOSH - flame on!

I should know, as I've been engaged in mental combat with these forces of evil web design idioms since the turn of the new Millennium, first in collaborating with Vincent Flanders on his second book, an act which lead to the eventually May 2002 establishment of Heal Your Church Website.

But enough of my credentials, lest I start this post start sounding like a Pauline epistle, though I should probably mention that I do the software as a service thing for a living ... but that's plenty about me, as others equally qualified have since dashed headlong into the breach.

This would include Cory Miller and James Dalman at Church Communications Pro (CCP), the latter of whom  begged the all important question: "Is Church marketing dead?" Specifically, pondering aloud:

"There is something going on but I quite can’t put my finger on it. It’s a gut feeling that’s right more often than not. I think the church landscape is drastically changing and that church as we know it now is going to evolve (no, I am not supporting Darwin) into something much different. It’s just a hypothesis or idea I’m working on, whatever that’s worth."

To which my response is: "James, let me save you a few steps. Church marketing isn't dead, it's just stuck on stupid!"

If that weren't the case, why would sites and services such as CCP, Church Marketing Sucks, For God's Sake Shut Up, and a handful of others continue to, and with apologies to Vincent Flanders, offer weekly lessons in good church marketing by looking at examples of bad church marketing?

I mean, how many examples of church websites adorned with the cliché gold lamé animated gif of a spinning cross that screams “everything I know about website design I learned from Strong Bad!“ do we need to 'Fisk' to make our point?

Or on a more serious note, how many of us seen all to many unique local churches  dive through the porpoise-driven hoops of Warren-ology just to become different like everyone else?

And that's really my point, it's not that church marketing is dead, it is that we're stuck on driving down the wide and easy path to church marketing, rather than seek out a difficult path that includes:

• Studying Scripture to see where marketing and evangelism intersect;
• Teaching lay staff and church on what real marketing is and how it works;
• Understanding that the Church didn't start in 2000, but rather 2000 years ago;
• Putting aside the need to agree 100% with everyone 100% of the time;
• Initiating marketing teams as opposed the message controlled at a single point;
• Daring to be different without amputating one's self from the Body.

Look, we have centuries of beautiful sacred songs, art and literature as the result of the artistry that was once the Church’s … why can’t we have the same for church marketing in the 21st century?"

Or put another way, Franky Schaeffer was right when he asserted that Christians are no longer influencing society through various forms of media, but are instead influenced BY it. A neat trick when you think Francis Shaeffer’s son warned us about this as far back as 1981!

WHOOOOSH - flame off!

Oh, and before I forget, to my Eastern Orthodox friends: Χριστός Ανέστη!

Comments

[Bill A]

I couldn't agree more!

I believe another problem is some of the online communities who are trying to be helpful and simply end up promoting more bad design -- ChurchMediaNet pops to mind.

The real question is how do we show these folks there's a better way?

[Ryan]

I've got to say, it's not about better marketing, it's about personal connections. Sure, we may on some level call this marketing, but it has more to do with one-to-one interactions.
Websites will never go away. Certainly, the more well-designed the site, the better. But people would really rather here a story than read a statement of beliefs.
This is about personal touches far more than it is about web hits.

[Dean Peters]

I disagree Ryan. How can/does one make personal connections w/out first letting other's know such a potential relationship exists?

That's where studying the Scripture to see where it intersects with the marketing ideas such as conversion goals and/or lead generation comes into play.

Hey, one need only see how Paul worked with the Greeks in Athens with regards to the "unknown god" approach to see that in action.

It's all about education instead of just being a lemming and/or wishing the "marketing fairy" would come down and bestow knowledge w/out effort. Or as it is written in Romans 10:14 & 15:
"How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?"

Church marketing is about equipping the priesthood of the believer to preach. We don't do that - instead what I see is alot of individuals and churches lazily being different like everyone else.

[Antoine of MMM]

Dean, I agreee with your posting. And that's mainly because I live as a part of that agent of change that just happens to be changing things, but keeping the Word intact. Keep asking questions, and pushing past marketing and towards Christ in all aspects of our changing lives.

Ryan, you are correct as well. It is not just about the marketing, its about where that marketing needs to educated, edify, and empower the Body to be with one another in ways that it hadnot before. If you will, its always been about relationship, we now have new threads and a different pace of life in which to apply it. So yes, its about the interpersonal, but also how we week interpersonal Christ-led relationships in front of the pace of life that is evolving all around us.