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ChurchMarketingSucks.com Sparks a Conversation
November 29, 2004 – LOS ANGELES – A new web site launched in July hopes to start a conversation about the state of church communications. Church Marketing Sucks is a collection of almost daily tips, links and rants, commonly called a blog.
“We love the Church,” says Brad Abare, founder and regular contributor to the site. “But when it comes to communicating with an increasingly savvy world, the church is being left behind.” Abare teamed up with writer Kevin Hendricks and creative director Shawn Stewart to foster a conversation that could challenge and equip the church. Each work in the communications field, Abare and Stewart for the L.A. based marketing company Abare founded in 1998, and Hendricks for the freelance writing and editing company he started this year.
“This is a conversation, an idea—not a business,” says Hendricks. “We’re in this to see the Church become more authentic and effective, to see not simply butts in pews, but Christ in hearts.” The site delivers marketing tips and ideas, often mining stories from mainstream news outlets and applying the lessons to local churches. A recent entry posed a question about creating church membership cards to track demographics of church attendance. Another entry ponders the potential of a national church campaign, similar to a McDonald’s commercial that pitches the national brand rather than the local franchise.
Abare and Stewart have honed their expertise working on marketing projects for companies such as Youth Specialties and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, among others. Hendricks has written for CCM, Charisma, Billy Graham’s passageway.org and presented a seminar on blogging at the Evangelical Press Association’s annual convention in Minneapolis.
Founded in 2004, Church Marketing Sucks is a free flowing conversation about church communications. The goal is to frustrate, educate and motivate the church to communicate, with uncompromising clarity, the truth of Jesus Christ. Visit www.ChurchMarketingSucks.com to join the conversation.