April 9, 2008

Chasing Justice with Mark Van Steenwyk

More and more churches are trying to do the right thing, beyond simple evangelism. They're reimagining everything they do and each step in their processes to see if they're glorifying God.

We're huge advocates of this process, and we want churches to seek integrity in every single thing they do. To celebrate this journey, we're launching a new category today, called simply Social Justice. We've got a few entries coming your way to get our momentum up and running, and we're going to start off by talking with Mark Van Steenwyk. He's a leading face in the "New Monasticism" movement, so check out what he has to say about the church's movement towards justice:

Mark, thanks for doing the interview. Why don't you go ahead and let us know a little bit about who you are.

Mark: I'm 32, married to Amy (coming up on 11 years of marriage) and our first kid is due April 1 [Editor's Note: Their first son was born in late March--Congrats Mark!]. I'm a Mennonite pastor, and my community Missio Dei sorta fits into the "New Monasticism" movement. A handful of us live in a community house together, most of us live within a couple miles of each other. Our rhythm of life together includes a Sunday evening gathering, a Wednesday evening hospitality meal, a urban community garden, and a Saturday afternoon meal in the park (that we call the "hospitality train"--you can find out more on our web site). Some of us also work and volunteer in the neighborhood. We're also exploring prayer rhythms together. We have a book of morning and evening prayers that we published (called the Missio Dei Breviary). The folks in our community house are trying to pray every evening together through our prayer book, and we encourage all folks in Missio Dei to pray the breviary morning and evenings.

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Posted by Joshua Cody at 1:45 PM
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March 27, 2008

Church Marketing in South Africa

Finishing up (to the best of my knowledge) a whirlwind tour around the world from England to Belgium to Australia, we've now got Norman Clack from the Republic of South Africa to tell us a little more about church marketing in Africa. It's one of our longer interviews, but it's super interesting and insightful to hear the stories and challenges of life and church marketing in South Africa.

Norman, tell us a little about yourself and your church.
Norman: I’m a licensed pastor with the International Federation of Christian Churches in South Africa. I have been in full-time ministry for 9 years. I have had the privilege to be on staff and involved in a leadership capacity with a spectrum of denominational as well as some non-denominational churches in South Africa over the past 17 years.

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Posted by Joshua Cody at 12:20 PM
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March 20, 2008

Catalyst Interviews Seth Godin

The kind folks over at Catalyst pointed us to their most recent podcast with Seth Godin, our favorite bald marketing guru extraordinaire. As always, Seth has some incredible insights, and the Catalyst podcasts are always entertaining. Head over and check it out, or go straight through iTunes.

You'll get wonderful tidbits of information on the power of free, marketing stories rather than products, making a difference rather than making a profit, not being something you're not, the value of quitting and more.

It'll be worth your 30 minutes, I promise. If not, I'll personally refund your money from downloading it (but not the opportunity cost of the 30 minutes).

Posted by Joshua Cody at 12:09 PM
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March 5, 2008

Church Marketing Down Under

Our international repertoire has been growing leaps and bound. We learned about church marketing in England and then we moved on to Belgium. (Anyone from South America, Africa or Asia? Antarctica maybe? Drop us a line.) Then we decided to head to the other hemisphere and hear from Steve Fogg, the communication manager for Crossway in Melbourne, Australia. Here's what he had to say about church marketing in the land of kangaroos, boomerangs and blooming onions.

Steve, tell us a little bit about your church and your position there.

Steve: Based in Melbourne, Australia, Crossway is the largest Baptist Church in Australia. It is a church that has over 3,800 people attending its four campuses (plus English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and Indonesian language congregations) around Melbourne, with a fifth due to be launched this year. The vision is for Crossway to grow as a movement of churches throughout Australia and beyond with over 8,000 people by 2010.

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Posted by Joshua Cody at 11:13 AM
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February 25, 2008

Church Marketing: Belgian Style

We had a lot of fun interviewing Drew from England a few weeks ago and hearing what he had to say about church marketing in the UK. So much fun, as a matter of fact, that we wanted to hear from folks in other places.

So this week we'll let you in on our conversation with Philip Tregunna, a design and advertising specialist from Belgium who has a soft spot for churches.

Philip, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Philip: I'm 28, I graduated in graphic design and advertising a couple of years ago and since then I've been working as a conceptual creative for local and international brands in a number of advertising agencies. In my free time I've been helping various Christian churches and organisations with their designs and communications as a volunteer.

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Posted by Joshua Cody at 5:31 AM
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January 11, 2008

Church Marketing in the UK

I came across Drew McCarty in the Church Marketing Lab, and he was looking for some advice for a church plant (Drew's note: new web site coming soon) that was "radically relevant" and "orthodox in theology." Sounds tough, huh? Well, the church plant is in England. Sounds even tougher. I sat down with him (via e-mail, across the Atlantic Ocean), for a little Q&A about church marketing from a British perspective. Here's what Drew had to say:

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Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:47 AM
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July 2, 2007

Mad Church Disease Awareness

The good thing about Church Marketing Sucks is that we're people. People have friends. Thus, we have friends. Anne Jackson comes out of this simple logic. She's written for us before, and she likes to hang around and help church marketing not suck. We're pretty proud to know her.

She's got a new project she's working on called Mad Church Disease. It's about the epidemic of burnout among church staff and volunteers. Church marketing and communication sucks when it burns out your staff, so this is an important issue to consider. I sat down (virtually, via e-mail) with Anne to get the proper diagnosis.

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Posted by Joshua Cody at 7:57 AM
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May 21, 2007

Buzz '07 Interview with Mark Batterson

We here at Church Marketing Sucks are incredibly pleased to announce our second annual pre-Buzz Conference interview with Mark Batterson! Last year we introduced you to Batterson and Buzz, and we gave you a couple recaps of just what went down at the conference.

This year, they're gearing up to give the Conference another go. This year's conference will be held at Ebenezer's, the coffee shop location of National Community Church. The conference will be in Washington, D.C. from June 28-29, and the spots are nearly filled.

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Posted by Joshua Cody at 6:35 AM
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April 17, 2007

Origins, Mosaic Leadership Experience

I realize it's a little late to the game on this, but for anyone in the southern California area (or those with private planes), on May 1-3 in Pasadena, Calif., the annual Origins event is taking place. It's put on by Erwin McManus and his Mosaic collaborators. For those unfamiliar with Origins, it's kind of a non-event event. In typical McManus McFashion, they do a great job at doing unique things over and over again. I shot over some interview questions to Erwin (via his staff) and received the following responses.

What's the Origins Project all about--will it help my church's communication/marketing to not suck?
The Origins Project is about helping church leaders focus on the doing the right things--focusing on risk, mission, relationships, experimentation and creativity. The greatest marketing strategy is to create a community in which people experience authentic life transformation. Through their relationships, the transformed cannot wait to connect others as well.

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Posted by Brad Abare at 6:52 AM
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April 7, 2006

Mark Batterson and Church Buzz

Mark Batterson is the lead pastor of Washington D.C.'s National Community Church, a unique church that meets in two movie theaters in the nation's capital. Batterson is also behind the Buzz Conference, a church conference being held in Washington, D.C., May 4-5 that also features our very own Brad Abare.

Batterson has generously offered a Buzz Conference discount to Church Marketing Sucks readers. The regular registration is $139, but CMS readers can get in for only $99. E-mail Buzz Coordinator Juliet Main for the discount.

We talked with Batterson over e-mail to get his thoughts on Buzz.

So I'm a busy person—why should I come to the Buzz Conference?

Mark Batterson: The busier you are the more you need to come! I have a formula I came up with a few years ago: Change of Pace + Change of Place = Change of Perspective. A good conference helps fuel new ideas. A two-day investment can generate a year of creative ideas. Plus all of us need a few days out of our milieu. It keeps us from becoming a closed-system.

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Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 11:15 AM
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September 27, 2005

Tony Morgan and Church Marketing Resources

This weekend is the fourth annual Innovative Church Conference at Granger Community Church in Granger, Ind. In 2002 Granger started WiredChurches.com, a resources and training arm of the church that seeks to share what the church has learned with other churches. Tony Morgan is the Pastor of Administrative Services at Granger and the Executive Director of WiredChurches.com. I talked with Tony about WiredChurches.com and the Innovative Church Conference.

What prompted you to launch WiredChurches.com?

Tony Morgan: We were starting to get overwhelmed with leaders from other churches contacting us to ask about how we were doing ministry at Granger Community Church. We decided rather than trying to help leaders on a one-by-one basis, it would make a lot more sense to be proactive about offering resources and training experiences to help equip other churches. I'd like to say we were forward thinking with the whole deal, but WiredChurches.com was really a reaction to a problem that needed to be fixed. Now, I think other church leaders get better help, and I think our team can stay more focused on our primary mission: helping people in the South Bend area take their next step toward Christ.

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Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 10:32 AM
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July 20, 2005

Church Communications Minister Gene Mason

Gene Mason is the Communications Minister at the 5,000-member The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala. He's been doing communications ministry in local churches for 18 years, and this is the third church where he's started such a ministry. He also runs a web site called Communicorps.org that shares some of what he's learned.

You're the Communications Minister at your church—what do you actually do?

Mason: My department (ministry) is responsible for all media and promotion, including print, the web, video, displays, press relations, writing, editing, filming, photography, etc. We also handle all the technologies for our church (IT, copiers, printers, network), since we use it the most.

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Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 11:38 AM
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April 18, 2005

Church Creative Director Ryan Hartsock

A few weeks ago we received an e-mail from Ryan Hartsock, the Creative Director at Four Corners Community Church in West Chester, Ohio. He sent us some samples of work that he hoped didn't suck. Rather than simply taking a look at his work, we decided to ask him a few questions.

(Newspaper ad, right: "We have really tried to depart from just delivering with some cross and other "Christianese" symbols. This was one of our ads in a campaign of taking interesting pictures and adding some sort of tagline.")

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Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 11:46 AM
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March 19, 2005

A Few Good Pastors

Earlier this year, I got an email from Pastor Robin Bailey, a Church Marketing Sucks participator and big fan of churches that get communication and marketing right. (You may remember Robin from an earlier entry.) The email I received was an invitation to dinner as he and a handful of other pastors from Canada were coming to Los Angeles (where I live) on assignment.

Because it is hard for me to turn down a free meal--I agreed--and met up with them last night in downtown LA.

I was blown away by the authenticity of these pastors, and their insights and inspiration were equally encouraging. I really love hanging with pastors that understand what it means to live out their vocation on the other side of a pulpit. These guys get it.

Say hello to Albert Chu (the Asian thinker who within two weeks of attending his church, you'll be invited to his house for dinner with him and his wife), Robin Bailey (the church plant in progress who has his purpose set on one of the fastest growing communities in their region), John Van Sloten (the resident funny man who has the ugliest web site--says it's being re-designed--and reports that he did a mailer of 5,000 to his community which resulted in 120 people showing up to their opening service seven years ago), and Phil Reinders (the quieter conservative you know has ten times more in his head than he's letting you in on). These four were part of a group of seven, here in Los Angeles on a grant from the Lily Foundation.

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Posted by Brad Abare at 1:22 PM
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October 15, 2004

A Conversation with Brian McLaren

I had a conversation with author and pastor Brian McLaren about his latest book, A Generous Orthodoxy (see our review). We dove headlong into some controversial issues (which is pretty easy for a site called Church Marketing Sucks) like politics, marketing and Islam. While we will be pulling out some bite-size quotes, it seemed especially helpful to see the conversation in its entirety:

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Posted by Kevin D. Hendricks at 2:34 PM
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