Fishers of Men, a blog promoting a movie that releases this fall, spoke with our own associate editor Josh Cody about church marketing.
When asked if marketing is essential to preaching the gospel, Josh responded with the Bible:
“How will they hear without a preacher?” This is Paul’s charge. “Go to the ends of the earth and make disciples.” This is Jesus’. I don’t see how we get around church marketing.
Check out the full interview.
The Canadian talk show 100 Huntley Street recently did a feature about the effectiveness of church signs. Our own Josh Cody appeared via Skype to argue for better church marketing:
A recent feature on technology in church from Charisma magazine includes quotes from our executive director, Cynthia Ware:
“We’ve gone from the Gutenberg generation of the church to the Google generation of the church,” Ware says. “For 500 years, things have been one way. And now, in five years’ time, almost everything has changed. The gospel message doesn’t change, but the presentation of it and the accessibility of it and everything in the culture around it has changed.”
Recently our executive director, Cynthia Ware, has found herself in the news on a few occasions. We’re glad to welcome her as a part of our team and looking forward to the church at large benefiting from her voice in the community.
She discussed ministry excellence with skill and poise in a recent piece from the State of Ministry Online. Asked about the definition of excellence in online ministry, Cynthia had this to say:
Excellence used to be about making your blog spectacular, but now we are seeing many more evolutionary and collaborative open source efforts. Sometimes online excellence is seen when someone has taken the initiative and laid the foundation for others to follow.
She was also quoted recently in Faith in San Antonio as well, discussing the delicate challenge of making wise decisions about when to embrace new technologies.
We look forward to Cynthia’s continued role in helping the church balance technology and effective communication.
If you’ve followed us for any time at all, you likely know that we tend to give a rough time to Christian copycats. Recently, our founder Brad Abare sang this same tune once more in The Tampa Tribune.
Brad responds to the fad of Christians making puns or spin-offs of popular culture items, saying:
“The whole claim for Christians in general is that God is the source of all creativity. I think there’s something to being original that will speak to people in a way that we don’t have to copy.”
It’s always nice to have an opportunity to point folks looking for a quote from the “Christian perspective” in the right direction. We hope to see more loving and challenging quotes like this come from the church moving forward.
The latest issue of the Leadership Journal took a look at churches using social media, and they turned to Church Marketing Sucks for reference.
Our own Michael Buckingham is quoted on the issue, saying:
“The Internet isn’t powerful because it connects you to information, but because it connects you to people.”
And they go on to report our unscientific poll results to help get the pulse on how churches are doing with social media.
We’re always humbled and excited to be involved with publications like Leadership Journal. We look forward to continue giving advice and challenges to the church community at large as we all try to communicate the gospel more clearly.
Our own Brad Abare recently penned an article for Christianity Today considering the benefits and detriments of the cell phone revolution on spirituality.
He examines the obvious benefits of the technological advance–greater access to biblical texts, great connectivity amongst individuals and improved availability of resources for those seeking to go deeper.
But perhaps more astutely, the article considers the drawbacks of this technological advance. He warns:
A life-giving, biblical church community must understand the difference between using technology to communicate the transforming power of the gospel, and letting the gospel be transformed by technology. We need more thoughtful Christians who are determined to heed Henry David Thoreau’s warning against becoming “the tool of our tools.”
You can read the entire article on the Christianity Today web site.
Recently, the Chicago Tribune looked at the issue of churches marketing themselves online, and more specifically, the Cultivate Conference recently held at Park Community Church:
On Tuesday, 250 Web-savvy Christians — from blogging pastors to iPhone programmers — gathered at Park Community for Cultivate 09, an interactive conference on ministry communication, which includes marketing strategy. More than a third of Americans younger than 50 don’t have a religious affiliation, according to a 2008 study by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, but conference organizers say Web-based campaigns help bring younger, “unchurched” people into the Christian community.
The article covers the benefits of connecting via technology as well as the potential pitfalls of bypassing personal relationships in favor of online connectivity. It also includes a mention of Center for Church Communication founder Brad Abare:
The conference’s proceeds benefit, in part, the Center for Church Communication, a nonprofit that tries to steer churches away from bad clip art and ineffective marketing. In its online labs, 3,500 people have shared their innovative ideas, said Brad Abare, 30, the center’s founder.
Don’t hesitate to read the entire article to see their view of churches marketing and communicating online.
Veritas, an online magazine for twentysomethings in Des Moines, Iowa, did a story on social media and the church. The story includes an interview with our own Brad Abare who offered his perspective on social media and the importance of forging offline relationships.
The Minneapolis-based Star Tribune recently covered religious marketing and gave us a nod. They briefly mention own our “bluntly named” Church Marketing Sucks, noting that we criticize how marketing is done rather than the practice of marketing itself.
They also point out that “the bulk of the site offers tips on designing eye-catching web pages.” Hopefully we’re accomplishing more than that, but we’ll take what we can get.
The article does have a lot more to say about church marketing from smarter folks, as noted on Church Marketing Sucks.
