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Church Marketing Sucks

A new blog that will be a regular read for me:

Church Marketing Sucks

Immediately take issue with the title of the Web site? Read their about page.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 17th, 2004 at 9:15 amand is filed under Matt's External Brain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

6 Responses to “Church Marketing Sucks”

  1. Kirsten said on: December 17th, 2004 at 10:49 pm

    I’m adding this to my bloglines too. Looks interesting!

  2. pat said on: December 17th, 2004 at 10:50 pm

    “Lousy clip art and typos are just as bad as glossy photos of people prettier than your congregation. The goal is being authentic and effective”

    Scathing. I like.

  3. Matt said on: December 17th, 2004 at 10:51 pm

    There is definitely some stuff that is scathing there :) But that isn’t all they’re about. Here’s an excerpt that really drew me in:

    “If church marketing sucks, we should do our best to make it better. Not to be better than other churches, not to impress design-savvy visitors, but because we’re doing this for God and we want to reach people. Yet amazingly (here comes that contradiction again), God accepts our pathetic efforts. He certainly doesn’t need our marketing, our evangelism, or even the sacrifices of old. For God it’s all about our hearts. Are we giving this our all and doing it with the best of intentions?

    The church is a broken institution, made up of sinful people. And that’s exactly the draw. We don’t have to be perfect. We don’t have to clean ourselves up. We come as we are. That doesn’t mean we wallow in the dirt and the muck, but it shouldn’t keep you from coming in the door.

    Sometimes that might mean the marketing sucks. Quite frankly, it all sucks. Church is a ragtag bunch of losers, you and me both. Which is why we so desperately need God.

    When it comes to the marketing, the flyers, the postcards, the sign out front — all we can do is our best. And maybe our best sucks, which isn’t exactly where I was going with this, but it’s an interesting thought. If our best does suck, let’s be honest and open about that. Church marketing that does the best it can, that’s honest about its shortcomings, that truthfully presents that particular congregation, can’t possibly suck.

    We’re not here to impress. We’re here to help the church bring people to God. That might happen through helping churches avoid cheesy clipart and bad design decisions. But it also might happen when churches drop the facade and embrace the fact that we’re all broken. Church marketing sucks. But church marketing that acknowledges we suck might be on the right track.”

  4. kortals said on: December 17th, 2004 at 10:51 pm

    on a related note. I am/was recently in the process of developing a top ten worst church signs. you know the ones with the creative sayings that churches can change regularly? fortunately, i don’t see enough churches with this type of sign to have my list done…but here was number one:

    “To our atheist friends: Good luck”

    Arrogant?

  5. kirsten said on: December 17th, 2004 at 10:52 pm

    Korthals, I have the perfect sign to add to your collection.

    Socastee Original Freewill Baptist Church: “Wanted: More old fasion members, K.J.V. believing, peculiar God fearing, born again Christians.”

    This was seen near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in the summer of 2000. After driving past this church several times, I pulled over to the side of the road to take a picture. Let me know if you want to see it some time. Maybe if I get around to it I will scan it and post it somewhere.

  6. Tim said on: December 17th, 2004 at 11:35 pm

    At least they have friends who are atheists… that’s better than most Christians.