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June 2008 | |
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You are viewing an archived version of the Sermonview Newsletter. View the current edition. |
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VISUAL PREACHING Church Marketing: Its Place in MinistryBy Larry Witzel Church marketing. The very words are controversial. Some say profane business practices have no place in ministry. Others strongly believe that adopting contemporary marketing methods is necessary to be relevant, while most church leaders are simply too busy to think about it. Yet there is a growing consensus that there is a role for marketing in ministry. And although the term “marketing” is uncomfortable to many, the fact is that nearly every church uses marketing principles in one way or another. This month, we begin a new series of articles on church marketing. Over the next few issues of the SermonView newsletter we’ll take a look at some practical applications of marketing principles in the church environment. The Purpose of Church Marketing To begin with, let’s be clear about the purpose of church marketing. Ephesians 4:13 talks about the goal of church activities: “Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” Earlier in this passage, Paul talks about leadership roles in the church: Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. He talks about them preparing the whole church for “works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” But the fundamental goal of all this activity is for us to become fully mature Christians, continuously growing until we become complete reflections of Jesus Himself. And just like every other church-related activity, the purpose of church marketing is to help develop mature disciples. With that in mind, I’d like to suggest this definition for church marketing: Church marketing is intentional, Spirit-led action influencing people toward becoming mature disciples of Christ. Now, if you are at all familiar with secular marketing, you’ll notice that this definition is vastly different. A classical definition of marketing talks about the activities that lead up to an exchange of equally valued goods, about consumers obtaining what they need. It’s always about a market transaction, because the entire secular marketing philosophy is focused on transacting products and services with economic value. But Jesus said, “You cannot serve both God and Money” (Luke 16:13). And we don’t want to try to shoehorn Kingdom activities into a worldly system. But we do want to find biblical principles that have been adopted by secular marketing practitioners, and redeem those practices for use by a local church. Here’s another reason I don’t want to use a classical definition in the church setting. I’m uncomfortable with the idea that church activities, like a weekend service or Bible study, are “products” to be offered to “consumers.” America today is filled with consumer Christians, and a multi-billion dollar economy has grown around filling the spiritual “needs” of Christians with books, music, sermons, and myriad other products. These certainly have their place. But when millions of users of these products haven’t participated in any form of face-to-face church gathering in the last year, something is wrong.1 Being a Christian means being an integral part of a local body of believers. Phrases like “church shopping” imply that I can be a growing Christian without participating in service myself. And using a classical definition of secular marketing too easily leads us toward perpetuating the model of a few church leaders serving consumer Christians. As we saw in Ephesians 4, that’s not how the Apostle Paul thought of church, so I don’t want to, either. So here, again, is our definition of church marketing: Church marketing is intentional, Spirit-led action influencing people toward becoming mature disciples of Christ. Over the next few months, we’ll delve into the various components of church marketing, and how to apply effective church marketing practices to your unique situation. Next month: some ideas for being intentional in your ministry. Larry Witzel is Vice President for Product Development at SermonView. A former pastor, Larry has 15 years of marketing and public relations experience, and for the last 8 years has used his gifts to help church leaders communicate more effectively. Larry earned his MBA in marketing from the University of Washington, and lives with his wife and daughter in Vancouver, Wash. Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. 1Barna Research Group, “New Statistics on Church Attendance and Avoidance,” March 3, 2008 http://www.barna.org/ |
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