Comments on: Is Marketing a Dirty Word?

By: Anthony Smith

Anthony Smith — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 06:35:22 +0000

Here’s the deal…

The BIBLE says FIRST the natural THEN the supernatural.

That’s it! Case closed :-)

By: Shaun Snapp

Shaun Snapp — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 12:18:29 +0000

I don’t know about marketing getting a bad rap. It has the rap it deserves because it so often means misleading people with false claims. General Mills, Coke, Monsanto, insurance companies, all have lied so frequently that almost no claim can now be believed. Sure, the concept is of marketing is fine. However, its practice is appalling. We don’t measure a concept simply by its conceptual value, but by its actual performance.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 11 Dec 2006 21:08:25 +0000

How about instead of spending the money on marketing your church to christians who are already saved, you fill up and “market” your church by going out into the community, spending your money on meeting peoples needs in the community, and reaching people who are lost? I know that’s probably not easy to do… but it seems alot more rewarding and a much better use of funds.

By: Frank Meyer

Frank Meyer — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 11:52:49 +0000

Aristocles, son of Ariston, aka Plato, did an original critique of the marketing mindset in the service of deceit: creating attractive but ultimately incoherent images to prompt action by target audiences. The Old Testament prophets, beginning with Moses gave an earlier critique, in everything they had to say about idol worship and its various pathologies. Since most of the readers of this site will be at least acquainted with these warnings (First Commandment, anyone?; Elijah vs prophets of Baal;the pronouncements in the Psalms and the Prophets against idols, etc,etc?), I will focus on what this less familiar character contributed to the discussion.
The subjects of Plato’s critique were the pretenders to wisdom in his time: the sophists (private teachers proclaiming their wisdom and peddling it for pay), politicians (public teachers proclaiming their wisdom to crowds in order to accumulate power), and various other peddlers of nostrums for private and public maladies. He dealt with priests in “Euthyphro” (perhaps most directly relevant to a “church communications” focus), and with politicians and other busybodies and utopians in “The Republic”.
The first half of book 10 of “Republic” explains the problem with generic “marketing”: it is three steps removed from “what is”, being an image of a representation of some aspect of “what is”. It may be a “true image” or it may be a clever fraud (discussed at some length in “Phaedrus”).
If the church, the body of Christ, wishes to project beautiful images that compelingly communicate truth (the two categories, truth and beauty, are fundamentally equivalent in the platonic account of “what is”) it must give careful thought to how those communications transmit a faithful image of the one who claimed to be “the Way, the Truth, and the Life”. If those who have been given by the Head to be responsible for “equipping the Saints for works of service” (Eph 4:11-12) define “marketing” along these lines, they will do well. Otherwise, the professional image makers are best sent on their way and kept “outside the camp” (the tentative conclusion of Book 10, up to the “Myth of Er” in “Republic”, leaving the door open for them to reason their way back in, but otherwise keeping at arm’s length their emotive generation methodolgies that distort “what is” for the sake of ‘closing the sale’ or ‘moving the masses’ to irrational displays of passion).
There is a positive account of image making in Scripture, too, which deserves attention: e.g., the descriptions of the fixtures and accouterments of the temple, and the Ark of the Covenant, and all of the texts that spell out the intent of the design of these artifacts to present a faitful image of divine truths, most of which are frankly beyond the boundaries of the intelligible (that which can be fully apprehended by thought). Both platonic thought and the “faith once delivered to the saints” acknowledge this boundary. Plato did not see the “personal” aspect of what he called “the Idea of the Good”, but he did understand that it went beyond what could be directly known. Scripture underlines the same point in driving us towards an acknowledgement of our creaturely dependence on our Creator which, unlike the other trans-tribal monotheistic “brands” (Judaism and Islam), is represented in Christian thought as a multi-personal yet fully unified being.

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 22:35:20 +0000

Marketing is not just about moving products and services, ultimately its about selling an idea or perception about an organisation or it’s products and services to potential consumers. A church has a very important idea to communicate, the truth that Jesus Christ died for every single one of you, sometimes this means that a church has to meet the world on a level which people in the world are able to understand. This is known as a shared field of experience.
I believe that a person can only be saved through belief in Jesus Christ (John 3:16) and that eternal life as opposed to eternal damnation is a pretty attractive prospect. However, I see no problem with creating a positive and comfortable image for a church, a perception of credibility and understanding, but more than just a perception. Churches need to meet people on a level that they are comfortable at, how else will they be able to communicate the truth?
As a marketing consultant and a christian, I believe that ethical marketing of churches which understands that medium is not more important than the message, but rather a tool enabling the message to be clearer to the modern world, is completely acceptable and appropriate.
Zane Anderson has stated that Jesus wasn’t the best marketer, because not all the people who heard him speak or saw his miracles decided to follow him. This doesn’t mean that he is not a good marketer. Marketing is not convincing people to buy something, it’s more about telling people about that thing and why they need it, the old adage, you can take a horse to water but you can’t make him drink, is very relevant to marketing.
Marketing well, means that a customer makes their decision to purchase a product or service after an evaluation of all the alternatives and opportunity costs involved. It is not forcing someone to buy something or ensuring that everyone buys something, but rather, making sure that everyone knows what is available and what benefits it will provide them if they purchase it.
I would also draw the attention of the owner of this blog to the fact that some fairly inappropriate replies have been posted here which have nothing to do with the topic.

By: zane anderson

zane anderson — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 00:07:40 +0000

By today’s standards, Jesus wasn’t the best marketer, no? Luke 8:10: He said, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, “‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’

By: Anthony D. Coppedge

Anthony D. Coppedge — Tue, 02 May 2006 13:16:37 +0000

Marketing: to have a message you want people to hear about and act upon.
Gee, that’s exactly what we should be doing. Let’s just not suck at it.

By: Jeff Courter

Jeff Courter — Thu, 27 Apr 2006 11:02:55 +0000

As an elder at our Presbyterian church in suburban Chicago (where the majority of the population is Roman Catholic), we have what I would call a marketing problem: our membership is declining, and we don’t have many new visitors. In short, we need to advertise.
Advertising is a business term; in the church, we use the word “evangelize”, but it pretty much means the same thing. We are spreading a message with an intended purpose: to gain a commitment (for a business, it would be a commitment to buy). Using business terms does not mean we share the same objectives; it simply means we have found a useful term from an outside source and are appropriating the term for our own use. We do this all the time in the English language.
Speaking of business, as a church elder, I regularly attend church meetings where we discuss the “business” of the church (finances, spending, building maintenance, salaries, etc.) While these discussions may not seem or feel “spiritual”, they are necessary. In fact, during one of the meetings, I heard the comment, “The church is in the business of doing God’s business!” I find this a very helpful phrase – “God’s business”. It’s a phrase which bridges a gap between the principals of capitalistic enterprise and our church organizations which promote the Kingdom of God.
While the church does not exist to make a profit, Jesus did spend quite a bit of time talking about money (in fact, he taked about money more often than heaven or hell)! We should freely use the techniques and tools which businesses have developed to spread their message and gain commitments to purchase – these tools can help the church grow.
In today’s society, we aren’t simply competing with messages from neighbors, schools, relatives and associates as perhaps we did in the past. People today are bombarded with messages to “buy this” or “try this”, and it’s not simply trying to sell a product. New religions are using these methods as well. Ideologies hostile to the Christian church are “advertising” and gaining converts every day. We can’t afford not to do the same – too much is at stake.
Peace & love -
Jeff

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 10 Apr 2006 05:35:55 +0000

The Holy Spirit is how the truth is heard. When miracles, signs and wonders along with the fruit of the Holy Spirit, are coming out of a church then you won’t need to advertise, the intervention of the supernatrual in the natrual will draw people, and if it’s happening in a local church then it will grow, without having to use business marketing methods etcetera.

By: Paulette

Paulette — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 08:34:49 +0000

Danielle, I think this site makes the point that “commodifying Christianity” is pretty much all that the church has managed to accomplish thus far.
Now that is scary.
For the most part, there’s been mostly a very superficial approach of “monkey see, monkey do” to grow congregations, instead of actually following Christ’s example to help each other grow spiritually.
Of course, the former is much easier.