Texas blogger Rob Stewart mentioned us in a recent post, noting that we take issue with marketing the church.
While I love the post, I did want to point out that we don’t have an issue with marketing itself. Marketing happens. We have an issue with crappy marketing.
Both Stewart and commenter Chris Green suggested better approaches for helping the church connect with people:
Stewart: “What if people in need came to know the Church not by its place (the four walls on a street corner) but by Christians’ effectual presence in their lives?”
Green: “I wonder what it would be like if we took our marketing money and made it mission money. Like putting cash into an after school day care program for single parent families that can’t afford day care. Or putting our creativity to work on solving housing issues, or recovery for addicts, or helping teen moms.”
While those approaches aren’t traditionally what we think of as marketing, they’re still marketing. These are the kind of ideas that are gaining steam in the business world as traditional media advertising becomes less and less effective. This is marketing that no longer sucks.
