Church Marketing Should Stop

Tony Morgan, Chief Strategic Officer at NewSpring Church and excellent ministry blogger, just posted about how he is against marketing in the church. In his words:

No more direct mail postcards. Stop the billboards and the radio ads. Take down the clever cliches on the church sign out front. End the platform announcements the bulletin announcements and the email blasts. These tactics need to be avoided.

Now I am making an assumption here, but I think his issue is not that we (the church) announce ourselves towards the masses, but rather the mindset and actions of marketing the church. In other words, the marketing of the church has replaced the Good News of the church. Tony touches upon this idea in the last full paragraph, saying:

Marketing is becoming a barrier to the advancement of the Gospel message. It’s becoming a hindrance for the church.

Last week in my Ministry in a Cultural Context class in seminary, we talked about the broad church trend towards church marketing and branding. What intrigued me most about our discussion was how broad and different our views were on marketing. They ranged from accepting and embracing mass marketing to a few individuals who had no desire for, and were actually shocked at, churches reaching outside the walls and advertising to the masses. Eventually, an agreement was made that some churches tend to use marketing in a healthy way, by announcing their church to the general population or presenting stirring questions that lead people in search of answers (the definition of a “seeker”).Other churches, however, use modern marketing techniques to get a ton of people in to the building, but at the cost of the message. Essentially, the marketing becomes the message.

Another though-provoking post by a great thinker. I am excited to hear read how he will unpack this idea in his upcoming posts.