Church Marketing Sucks

It might seem like just a few months ago that CMS turned three. Well, now, we’re turning a thousand. That’s right, you’re officially reading our 1,000th post. We thought of different things we should do to celebrate–a fireworks display, a six-million dollar church marketing grant, the world’s largest dance party.

Eventually, we decided to relax and reflect, letting you guys look over our top posts in the past three-plus years. We had some help from the likes of commenters, Google and our own memories, but we think you’ll appreciate our final list. Some are sentimental picks, some are controversial picks, but all are pure church marketing goodness.

Without any further ado, here’s the 10 shiniest, fanciest, and best posts from the last three years. Actually, they’re just our favorites–selected by us.

It’s Your Church, Now Act Like It.
Be the church where you are. No more, no less.

MacRumors Thread 500.
Church marketers, meet Apple.

Letting Satan Speak For Your Church.
Where bad proofing gets your marketing.

Experience Church, Stripped Down.
If the electricity went out, and your walls fell down, and your biggest givers died, what would you have left?

Marketing Without Marketing.
Broke? Don’t know what to do? Perfect!

Church Building Sucks.
Should they? If not, how can they be better?

Is Marketing A Dirty Word?
We don’t think so. Here’s why.

Why We Do This.
A church marketing motivational reminder from Brennan Manning.

Church Innovation Series Closing.
Rounding up our look at church innovation.

What Web 2.0 Means for Your Church.
How and why your church can change the world with web 2.0.

Still hungry for more church marketing? If these ten entries that are near and dear to our hearts don’t get your blood boiling, then we have more for you. Here are some milestones, key facts and important moments in the life of our blog here at CMS:

When Church Signs Suck.
If you Google us, you’ll find this as our top post result. Apparently, people hate sucky church signs.

Worship Technology Poll Results.
This poll received more responses than any poll we’ve ever done.

Welcome to the Lab Well, the Labs. All three.
These are the posts where we introduced you to the other members of our family — the Church Marketing Lab, the Job Lab, the Freelance Lab and the Events Lab.

Establishing Visitor Philosophy.
Hop in our way-back machine and check this out. It’s our first entry, all the way back from July of 2004.

CMS Goes Non-Profit.
We were broke. Then we filed for the government to recognize us as an organization intending to be broke. It was a good moment.

Heart & Soul.
A series exploring what we do and why.

Why We Use ‘Sucks’.
Here’s our most commented entry. If you don’t believe me, then follow my method of looking at the number of comments on the first 999 entries.

Did we have an entry in the past few years that you’ve really liked? Something we missed or a milestone overlooked? Let us know in the comments what we’ve missed, what you think and where you think we should go from here. Maybe buy an island in the Caribbean to start Church Marketing University? A global church leader marketing summit? Heck, maybe just better polls.

Thanks so much for being with us for the first thousand posts. It wouldn’t be possible without our CMS readers. We’ll try to do better the next thousand.