Church Marketing Sucks

Last week, we asked how your church responds to the issue of ministering to an increasingly diverse society. Where I come from, this means offering something more than NASCAR parties, Left Behind movie nights and revivals. For you, that means …

Staffing from various demographics. Poor question writing and an inability for deeper conversations leads to one of two conclusions:

• Only 16% of us attend churches where more than one demographic is represented on staff …
• Or, only 16% of us have churches who intentionally staff to match local diversity.

Holding services with different music types. I think we’ve all seen this. An 8:00 a.m. “early bird” (read: old person) service and a later “contemporary” service. Advantage: Avoiding an AARP coup d’etat. Disadvantage: Huge disconnect between the younger and older generations, with big losses for both. 17% currently wage war on culture clashes in this manner.

A multisite church serving various demographics. 4% of you said yes. It’s a number I like to hear. I think it shows that as a church, we’re not catering to traditional segregations, but there are some extreme circumstances where we do. Three cheers for the church.

Incoporating aspects of different cultures into services. I was surprised at the 12% here. I’d love to here how your churches are doing this or want to do this. And great for you guys.

We hold workshops focused on ministering to various groups. Down at 4% again. Perhaps we should consider looking to our friendly friends in the business world and steal their strategy here. It’s an issue, we need to consider how to face it and how to equip others to face it.

We just do what we do, God will translate it across cultural lines. The clear winner in our battle royale of demographics at 28%. A book can be written about this response. I think we should all take a deep breath and consider the possibility of going out of our way to meet local demographic needs, though.

Demo-what? Are those like Democrats? No, no they’re not.

Loyal contributors, I challenge you to take this battle from the highways and the hedges to the comments. What does your church do and why? And start thinking on our new poll, The Plagiarizing Church.