Church Marketing Sucks

Way back in 2004 when we first launched Church Marketing Sucks we envisioned putting out a book. We’ve always had that idea in the back of our heads (and I even have a rough draft on my computer), but it’s never come together.

This Thursday, Sept. 15, Outspoken: Conversations on Church Communication releases. We’re a little excited.

But this project is even better than writing our own book. It started with an idea Tim Schraeder had back in 2010, before he was the co-director of our organization: Instead of putting out a single voice to champion church communication, get a crowd of voices. Outspoken features contributions from more than 60 church communication pros. It’s a stellar list and it’d be a disservice to only mention a few names. So here they all are:

Brad Abare, Jon Acuff, Maurilio Amorim, Jay Argaet, Ben Arment, Lori Bailey, Dawn Nicole Baldwin, Dave Blanchard, Phil Bowdle, Stephen Brewster, Dawn Bryant, Michael Buckingham, Kerry Bural, Josh Burns, Chad Cannon, Bobby Chandler, Phil Cooke, DJ Chuang, Jon Dale, Nathan Davis, John Dyer, Steve Fogg, Michael Forsberg, Drew Goodmanson, Jim Gray, Danielle Hartland, Kevin D. Hendricks, Scott Hodge, Blaine Hogan, Adam Jeske, Bianca Juarez-Olthoff, Matt Knisely, Charles Lee, Jan Lynn, Will Mancini, Vince Marotte, Cheryl Marting, Evan McBroom, Scott McClellan, Kem Meyer, Tony Morgan, Eric Murrell, Cleve Persinger, Jesse Phillips, Stephen Proctor, John Saddington, Jeremy Scheller, Tim Schraeder, Jennifer Schuchmann, Jeremy Sexton, Kent Shaffer, Curtis Simmons, Cameron Smith, Rhett Smith, Paul Steinbrueck, Tony Steward, Katie Strandlund, Leonard Sweet, Gerry True, Corbyn Tyson, K.C. Walsh, Denny Weinman, Justin Wise, Shawn Wood and Jason Yarborough.

Whew!

Each person shares a chapter (or two) that explores an area of their interest. Outspoken covers everything from general marketing to writing, outreach to design, leadership to websites. Mark Batterson of National Community Church in Washington, D.C., called it a “must read.”

So it comes out on Thursday (if you’re near Chicago, we hope you’ll join us for the release party). All week long we’re going to be giving you some sneak peeks and sharing some ways you can get involved (book club!). We hope you’ll check it out.

First and foremost, you can download a free preview from the Outspoken site.

Second, we’ll leave you with a few quotes from the book to give you a taste:

• “Every time you communicate anything in any medium as a church, it is preaching.” – Jeremy Sexton
• “One of the most powerful tools any church has to reach people is a first-person story of a changed life.” – Jan Lynn
• “People don’t care about your website, but your content matters more than ever.” – Eric Murrell

and my favorite:

• “Don’t believe books on church communication.”  – Shawn Wood

See our poll results: Do you think your church needs a conversation about communication?