« Parade of Churches | Main | Satan Hates Life »
March 14, 2007
Grade Your Church Poll
(Filed under: Poll Results)
Last week, we asked you, scholarly CMS reader, to grade your churches on their marketing efforts. Upon receiving the grades and entering them into our computers, the averages were less than we had hoped for.
50% of you went with a grade of D or lower. That's troublesome. If your church were a marketing major, they would be that guy--you know, the one who is 35 and still trying to pass.
28% of the remainder went with a grade of C, described as "average." If we're grading on a curve, however, you're in good shape. Kudos to you, but keep it up.
A remaining 13% assigned a B and 9% an A. We'll go with three gold stars for each of you.
Big lesson at the end of the day: We live in a world that needs to hear our story, and we have to keep reinventing and improving how we tell it. If your church isn't passing, teach them how. If your church is passing, teach them how to get closer to that elusive perfect score.
Now, we turn to how your church ministers to various demographics. In the mean time, however, utilize our comment section and talk to one another about your grades. Don't be ashamed. Here's the question to get you started: What grade did you assign your church and why?
Posted by Joshua Cody at March 14, 2007 4:59 PM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1088
Comments
I gave us a C. I find I continually run into these constraints: time; money; and/or enough lead time. I don't want to copy what everyone else is doing (Outreach/Ed Young/GCC, etc) as far as materials because you never know when the same material will be done by someone else in the community. So, originality is important, but requires sometimes more resources than we have!
Posted by: Tony Chimento at March 15, 2007 1:09 PM
A for creativity and effort. A B+ for the rest because of time restraint and lack of budget.
Posted by: IMAGE Church at March 15, 2007 1:34 PM
We're a solid C at this point, up from a D last year at this point.
We have a world-class music director (and music ministry), and we're the only church in our area with any kind of a sports ministry.
We're by far the most visible in the electronic media of any church in our area. New people show up and say they found us by our website -- not what you expect to hear in rural New England!
We've also got a new pastor who is not afraid to shake things up a little -- perhaps a lot.
And in view of these four assets, we have begun to grow, even as a mainline Protestant church in an area of declining population.
BUT not everything is happening yet that needs to be. I'd like to be a B by this time next year.
Posted by: Geoff Brown at March 15, 2007 2:29 PM
It's great to hear you guys shaking things up and being on the up-and-up. Don't stop looking to get better and better, and don't ever forget that our individual church grades are never as important as the church at large. When something is sticking, bring in the whole community. Keep improving your grades and bringing the whole body up with you.
Posted by: Joshua Cody at March 15, 2007 3:29 PM
Contact Church Marketing Sucks