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January 29, 2010

Church Marketing Sucks Redesign

If you're not keeping up with the Freelance Lab and Job Lab, you might have missed this note. Church Marketing Sucks and our parent organization, the Center for Church Communication, are redesigning.

But don't just believe me, look at our listing in the Freelance Lab.

And not just redesigning, but growing up. We'll be able to feature wider content and all-in-all provide you with more information to help your church communicate the gospel with clarity and passion.

We're excited about the new energy and opportunities that will come with our first refresh in four years.

If you're a designer or developer interested, this is a last call for proposals. Check out the listing and let us know what you're thinking.

Posted by Joshua Cody at 10:58 AM
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January 28, 2010

Haitian Crisis Poll Results

The recent disaster in Haiti was of a scale unheard of in the Western Hemisphere. Some of you shared stories of how your churches were responding to the disaster in Haiti. Many faith-based organizations really made an impact during this difficult time, and we were interested to know how you felt about the actions of local churches.

Only 3% of you found yourselves disappointed at the response of churches. And just a few more, 9%, would say you were underwhelmed by support from local churches. These numbers are encouragingly small.

Still in the minority, 12% of our readers felt indifferent about the support from local churches. It was about what you expected, and you saw no reason for pride or shame. It was what it was. Meh.

The biggest chunk were the 48% of you who were pleased with churches' responses. They went above and beyond in your opinion, and you saw it as a great example of the church acting the way Christ charged us to. Kudos, churches.

Finally, 28% of you were blown away. Beyond pleased, you found yourself amazed at the way local churches allowed God to use them during this tragedy. Coupled with the last group, that makes 76% of you beaming with pride at the way churches have helped in Haiti.

Now, let's remember that the tragedy isn't over, and as donations slow, we have a great chance to continue ministering to Haiti. This is a time, as Haiti fades from our nation's spotlight, that churches can continue showing extraordinary love and care for those in need.

This week, our question is simple: Is your church putting its sermons online?

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:34 AM
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January 26, 2010

Seth Godin Addresses Linchpin and Church Marketing

Recently, Jeff Goins, who has blogged for us before, had the opportunity to interview Seth Godin as part of a blog tour for his new book, Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? If you're interested in learning more about the book, you can read Jeff's review.

Their conversation turned to church marketing, and Jeff was kind enough to allow us to reprint that portion of their interview. These two questions contain ample material for us to read, digest and discuss.

Without further ado, here is a portion of their conversation:

Jeff: In Tribes, you wrote about faith versus religion. You spoke at a Catalyst conference awhile back. You even endorsed Anne Jackson's book Mad Church Disease. It seems that you've made intentional efforts to participate in the Christian conversation recently. Can you explain why or what brought that about? How has faith framed your own worldview?

Seth: I have a huge problem with large bureaucracies, including organized religions. I think they stomp on humanity and kindness and connection. On the other hand, faith is so important. Faith in your future, in other people, in your ability to make a difference. What Anne showed me is that there are many people who are starting to distinguish between the status quo of religion and the essential humanity of faith, and I endorsed her book because she did such a good job of leading a conversation about faith. Faith is largely personal, and if you talk about it too much or proselytize, it can start to fade on you. Just do it.

Continue reading "Seth Godin Addresses Linchpin and Church Marketing"

Posted by Joshua Cody at 8:00 AM
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January 22, 2010

Designers vs. Pastors

by Erik Germesin, guest blogger

Let me begin with a confession. I'm a pastor, I am not a designer. In fact, I have to admit that I actually suck at design. But, my saving grace is that I have a huge amount of respect for people with God-given gifts in graphic design. I recognize the blessings to have been privileged to work with some of best designers in the context of the local church.

Recently, a comment made by a designer friend prompted me to seriously consider many of the issues that seem to face designers in the church. She said the worst part about being a designer is when people don't like your work.

That got me reflecting about how often the designers in the churches that I have known talk about the issues they have dealing with church leadership and senior pastors. I wonder if this is simply an issue of communication glitches, because we have more in common than we realize. These are, I believe, three big issues we have in common:

It sucks when people don't like your work.

Designer: You put your heart and soul into a design, and it hurts when people don't “get” it.

Pastor: You pour yourself into your sermons, and sometimes people just don't get it. It hurts for you, too.

Continue reading "Designers vs. Pastors"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 8:18 AM
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January 20, 2010

Year-end Ask Poll Results

We covered Saddleback's request for money at the end of 2009 recently, but we wanted to know how their request made you feel. What do you think of churches doing this at the end of the year? Here is what you had to say:

The biggest chunk of you resigned yourself to, "You've gotta do what you've gotta do." That's 31% of you who think you should throw caution to the wind and do what it takes to make the budget.

Next up, a similar 26% of you who are all for it. You think God works at the beginning of the year, the end of the year and everywhere in between. And you're excited about him working through an end-of-the-year offering.

Just a shade less of our respondents, 23%, were feeling just a tinge skeptical. You'd like to know some of the backstory where these missing dollars fall out of the budget during the year before you pass judgment.

Only 20% of you blatantly disapprove. Of those, 13% of you think it's probably not worth the public relations hit. And another 7% of you think the same thing, but in stronger words. Unfortunately, a few bad apples have given the church a reputation for being a get-rich-quick scheme, and you want to avoid this association at all times.

This week, like much of the country, we turn our focus to Haiti: How do you feel about the way local churches have responded to the crisis in Haiti?

Posted by Joshua Cody at 6:06 AM
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January 19, 2010

It's Time To Get Your Sermons Online

by Kevin Finn, guest blogger

Each week pastors across the world are creating valuable content. They work hard studying, praying and seeking the wisdom of others. They then polish of this all into a sermon that's (typically) delivered on Sunday morning. For years churches have been recording these sermons to CDs or tapes for those who are unable to attend the service. More recently though, some have been publishing their messages online. So is it time for your pastor to go digital?

Let's start by taking a look at the potential benefits posting your sermons online can have:

• For members who missed the service. Each week there is a percentage of your congregation that will be unable to attend the service for various reasons. For those people, providing easy access to the sermon online is a great service. This is especially important if your pastor teaches in series.
• Spreading the word. Beyond your own congregation, there are people who will benefit from hearing these messages. Posting your sermons online lets people easily share sermons with friends through e-mail, Facebook or Twitter. A timely message may speak to a non-Christian's heart in ways nothing else has.
• Easy distribution. Once you put the pieces in place, people can subscribe to your sermons. Each time a new message goes online, they can be notified and in some cases the sermons will automatically be loaded onto their portable players or phones.
• Listen again. There are some sermons that are just so rich and deep that it's hard to take it all in Sunday morning. Being able to listen to the sermon again at home, work or in the car can be invaluable.
• Promotional purposes. More and more people are searching online to find new churches. Letting people listen to sermons right from your web site gives them get a taste of the church culture, teaching style and the personality of the pastor.
• Historical archiving. Remember that sermon from last year's Christmas Eve service? Posting your sermons online gives your members, and your pastor, easy access to all past sermons; just a few clicks away.

Continue reading "It's Time To Get Your Sermons Online"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 7:06 AM
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January 18, 2010

The Truest Form of Relevance

by Pam Parish, guest blogger

As a church marketer, I often read articles questioning whether or not the church is relevant, a copycat or not original. I read these because it's my job to represent my local church body with excellence and originality, but, more importantly, I have a responsibility as a Christian to represent Christ with the utmost integrity because I am fully aware that a jaded world is watching.

What I've discovered this past week is that even though relevance in the form of communications, art and presentation of the gospel are all important, the truest form of relevance is expressed when the spirit of God within us is compelled to help others who are hurting.

In the past few days, we've all witnessed one of the greatest natural disasters in our lifetimes. An entire country ripped apart by a massive earthquake, thousands dead and millions without basic communications, food, medical attention and water. However, we've also witnessed an outpouring of response through aide, prayer and awareness from the church that the jaded world is also watching.

I looked up the definition of relevant and this is what I found, "bearing upon or connected with the matter in hand; pertinent." Personally, I think as Christians and as church bodies we've more than lived up to the truest definition of being relevant in the past few days. And, even though we can't forget our responsibility on the communications side of relevance, we must give credit where credit is due and, when it comes to helping those in need, Christian organizations and the church deserve an A+.

Posted by Guest Blogger at 8:00 AM
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January 15, 2010

How Does Your Church Respond to Disaster?

In the face of tragedy the church is rising up. It's amazing to see so many examples of the church being, well, the church. I'd link to them, but let's not play favorites. Let's share stories.

Post examples of what your church is doing or what you've heard other churches doing in the comments or over at the Church Marketing Lab where a discussion is already going.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 11:56 AM
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January 14, 2010

Haiti, Robertson, Deal With the Devil

Church Marketing Sucks is no stranger when it comes to covering conversations about stupid things Christians say. From Sponge Bob and gay tolerance to suggesting the U.S. assassinate Hugo Chavez, we have a lot to learn when it comes to communicating better.

This week, Pat Robertson provided further fodder for the already fearsome fire he is known for fueling. In case you missed it, Robertson implied that the January 12 earthquake in Haiti was tied to an 18th century pact with the devil. During the slave rebellion of 1791, Vodou priest Dutty Boukman performed a ceremony at Bois Caïman, apparently making a pact with the devil in exchange for victory over the French. According to Robertson, "the Devil said, 'OK, it's a deal.'"

To be fair, although Robertson did cross the line in his implication, he seemed to exit that part of the conversation and move on toward rallying people to pray for and give to the people of Haiti. A spokesman for CBN later said that "Dr. Robertson never stated that the earthquake was God’s wrath."

I'm not here to beat-up on Pat Robertson. He does a pretty good job of that himself.

The main reason to bring this up is to remind ourselves yet again how nutso we look when we say things that have no place in the public conversation. It's one thing for Robertson to wrestle with the sovereignty of God. It's quite another to suggest he knows specifics about how the devil or God operates when it comes to natural disasters.

Continue reading "Haiti, Robertson, Deal With the Devil"

Posted by Brad Abare at 8:38 AM
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New CFCC Leadership

A few weeks back we hinted at a coming official announcement about the board of directors for the Center for Church Communication (our nonprofit parent). That announcement is here. It's kind of anti-climactic now, but it does mean we have an incredible team leading us forward in our mission to help the church matter.

The board members include Brad Abare, Dawn Nicole Baldwin, Phil Cooke, Drew Goodmanson, Scott McClellan, Kem Meyer and Kent Shaffer. We also have a new executive director and fearless leader, Cynthia Ware.

We're pretty excited and it means new projects are already underway. But it does sound like insider bureaucracy, so we'll now return you to your regularly scheduled blogging.

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 5:41 AM
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January 13, 2010

2010 Trends Poll Results

We're well aware our readers are a wise and thoughtful bunch, so this week we asked your thoughts on what 2010 would hold for churches. Your response was a bit... disheartening. But we'll get to that in a bit. We'll start from the bottom.

Our biggest loser? 6% of you think the biggest news of 2010 will be church beating "Bed" for the best place to be on Sunday mornings. Hopefully the rest of you already have a church better than your bed.

Next up, 13% of respondents see churches shrinking this year and finding new types of success. Which is just a shade behind the next two groups. 16% of our readers think this will be the year churches really define themselves as caretakers of the needy. And 17% of you believe this year churches will finally get a grip on social media.

Our big winner? Eek! 29% of you believe this will go down as the year churches stick their head further in the sand. That's a bummer, and we hope with all our hope that 2010 is remembered as the year our readers were wrong.

So, 19% of you who said "something totally different," let's hear it in the comments. When all is said and done, how will we remember 2010?

And this week we're asking: What's your opinion on churches asking for money at year's end?

Posted by Joshua Cody at 8:08 AM
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January 12, 2010

Why Can't Christians Be Original?

Encouraging the church not to be a copycat is a popular topic around here. The subject landed a spot in our top 10 posts of 2009 and was your pick for third best advice we offered in 2009. Even today I came across a blog called Stuff Christian Culture Likes, which kind of reminds me of Stuff Christians Like (the book comes out April 1, no joke), which probably reminds you of Stuff White People Like (the book is available now). Let's give Stuff Christians Like founder Jonathan Acuff some credit though--he gives a quiet nod to Stuff White People Like in his very first post.

OK, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. There can be room to take inspiration and even do parody and make something new, creative and interesting. Sometimes the best jokes are simply references to more pop culture. But it gets old at some point, right? Let's not start Stuff Churches Like.

Whatever happened to originality? Our own Brad Abare talked with the Associated Press about "Jesus junk" recently:

"We think it's just dumb. It's not a true reflection of creativity." ...

Abare wishes that Christians paid more attention to the "Thou shall not steal" commandment. "The whole claim for Christians in general is that God is the source of all creativity. I think there's something to being original that will speak to people in a way that we don't have to copy."

Continue reading "Why Can't Christians Be Original?"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 6:37 AM
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January 11, 2010

Saddleback's Big Ask

You might have heard that Rick Warren made headlines last week with his end-of-year financial ask: They needed $900,000. They got $2.4 million. Some lauded their commitment to stay within budget, while others lambasted their seeming ignorance of current financial difficulties.

When it comes to money and church, sometimes you just can't win. Saddleback tried to emphasize all the good they were doing in their community helping people in a hurting economy. But that good news didn't make the headlines.

On his own blog, Rick Warren assured the community the financial shortage was not a management issue, and he also aptly noted:

Because our church attracts a lot of attention, the media will undoubtedly report my letter--but only partially, not telling the whole story. It is likely that none of the positive end-of-the-year reports of your service to the community and none of your amazing accomplishments as a church family in 2009 will be reported. They may get some facts wrong or even misjudge our motivations. I know this is frustrating, but don't let it bother you.

I've attended churches in the past who make yearly practice of a big end-of-the-year hurrah to make sure they stay somewhere closer to the black. And likely many of your churches just faced year-end shortcomings. So let's see if we can glean some wisdom and ask some healthy questions as a result of Saddleback's story.

Continue reading "Saddleback's Big Ask"

Posted by Joshua Cody at 8:44 AM
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January 7, 2010

Losing Your Message but Gaining Publicity

by Steve Fogg, Guest Blogger

Just before Christmas, a church in New Zealand launched a new billboard that received extensive coverage from news outlets and blogs around the world.

The church was aiming to leverage the Christmas season to promote theological conversations. Specifically, they had five purposes:

• To invite people to think about the virgin birth and the nature of God.
• To say that there was more than one Christian way to think about the virgin birth and God. Indeed there are many.
• To promote the Progressive view of Jesus having 2 human parents and God being the power of love in his life.
• To ridicule the very literalistic view that God is a male and literally sired Jesus.
• To invite people outside of the church to see a type of Christianity here at St Matthew’s that they might be able to relate to.

The scope of this post, however, is not their theology but their advertising. The billboard's main point is that Jesus was conceived by Mary and Joseph. But this message did not get across.

Continue reading "Losing Your Message but Gaining Publicity"

Posted by Guest Blogger at 12:14 PM
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January 6, 2010

Best Advice Poll Results

Whether we're writing an original piece or commenting on some external marketing atrocity, we always aim to temper our columns with solid advice for churches looking to communicate their message. With that in mind, we wanted to see what advice you liked best in 2009. And here's your verdict:

27% of you kind respondents think our best advice is to quit ragging on other churches. And we covered the subject explicitly two times. Hopefully in 2010, we'll see churches paying more attention to loving and caring for one another and less attention on monopolizing their stomping ground.

A close second are those 24% of you who appreciated our challenge to tell stories that are true. Kevin challenged churches to fact-check their stories, or better yet, tell the true and real-life stories of people in their own communities.

Next up, 19% of our visitors think "Stop copying" is the best advice we gave. You're tired of seeing churches copy television series, one another and anything else they can find. Perhaps this will be the year that churches get their creative act together.

12% of you think the best thing we challenged churches was to "Learn to take criticism." It hurts to hear the hard stuff, but it's better for all of us if we take it into account. And just a hair behind that are those of you who really resonated with our call thankfulness.

Another 7% of you appreciated our warning on the dangers of spec work. And a measly 3% of you thought the best advice we gave was to check your carbon monoxide detector. C'mon, that one was pure, unadulterated, common sense gold!

Here's to another year or church marketing advice, philosophy and common sense. We'll try and do better this time, we promise. But in the mean time, vote in this week's poll: As 2010 dawns, what church marketing trend do you think will most define the next year?

Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:41 AM
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January 4, 2010

The Top 10 Posts of 2009

In our look back at 2009 we've covered the most hotly debated posts, the top CFCC news, the best tweets and we're asking you for the best advice of 2009 (look for the poll results tomorrow). So today we finally come to the big one, the top 10 Church Marketing Sucks blog posts of 2009.

These top 10 posts were chosen by our staff based on editorial vigor, usefulness, non-suckiness, education, frustration and motivation. Clearly, it was a very scientific process that would be too complicated to explain here.

We give to you the Top 10 Church Marketing Sucks Blog Posts of 2009:

Honoroable Mention: Church Marketing Lab: Seeing Improvement
First and foremost we give an honorable mention to one of our roundup posts from the Church Marketing Lab. We can't claim much credit for what happens in the lab--that work is thanks to the many people who take part, including our great crew of moderators. Earlier this year we posted a series of lab entries that showed progress. An initial piece posted asking for help and then a draft posted later with some of the advice from lab members incorporated into the design. It's awesome to see improvement in progress.

10) I Am a Christian
We took on denominational "I Am/We are _____" marketing campaigns with the broader statement that we are, above all else, Christians. "An emphasis on our doctrinal differences only serves to divide us when we should instead find reasons to be united."

9) Ed Young: Cussing Pastor
We called out Fellowship Church's Ed Young when he called out pastors who swear. We weren't condoning profanity from the pulpit, but pointing out the double standard. Ed says swearing pastors are trying to be cool. As cool as a seven day sex challenge? "One person's cool is another person's relevant. One person's relevant is another person's reality. One person's reality is another person's damnation."

8) To Text or Not to Text?
Tim Schraeder is the director of communications for Park Community Church in Chicago, an incredible live blogger and an avid texter. On that last count he delivered a simple and basic guest blogger entry that lays out the pros and cons of text messaging for the church. It's practical, full of good advice and real examples. What more could you want?

Continue reading "The Top 10 Posts of 2009"

Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 12:37 PM
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