Church Marketing 101

Over 90 percent of all Christian churches in the United States have fewer than 200 members. While they vary in shape, size, ethnicity, and denomination, they have one thing in common: the desire to grow. So why is it that some churches fail to grow for years, while other congregations in the same community increase exponentially? The problem, says church marketing authority Richard Reising, is that most churches should not be doing promotion. Instead, they should focus on the preparation that will make members eager to invite others. In ChurchMarketing 101®, he demystifies basic marketing principles for the church, evaluates them against biblical principles, and illustrates how simple changes can remove roadblocks that hinder members from reaching out. Reising's simple yet insightful approach will be invaluable to pastors and ministry leaders from churches of all denominations and styles.

The Roman Catholic Church in Germany is faced with an increasingly pluralistic and secularized society that further precipitates the decline in membership that has been ongoing already since the 1970s through instances of aging population and church leavings, and has been causing at the level of locally and regionally operating parishes and their establishments a growing shortage of personnel and other resources. Here a marketing communication that is based on target group-specific perception can be useful to remedy the situation in that the religious and social offers as well as the personal and media appearance of parishes are adjusted to population groups that credit to their socioeconomic potentials are able to substantially contribute to building social capital in church contexts. Particularly Catholic Academics with high affinity to the Church make their comprehensive individual, professional and financial resources available more frequently and more consistently for voluntary engagements than the majority of the German population. A group that positively engages to great extent is that of those students and Academics who are organized in Catholic student fraternities or associations and their local institutions. A targeted involvement of this small but high-resourced population group in local church activities can be a substantial and existential aid for the Catholic Church in Germany and sustain its further development. This is explored and discussed on the example of the largest academic association in Europe (Cartel Confederation of the Catholic German Student Associations (CV), in German: Cartellverband der katholischen deutschen Studentenverbindungen), and attached specific practical recommendations for parish marketing. The Germany-based research results can be applied to other European countries such as Austria and Switzerland. Furthermore the discussion of results offer a broad range of new perspectives and ideas for church marketing in those countries, which have a living culture of denominational student associations.

Most businesses don’t have a good understanding of the faith community and how to market to this huge audience in effective, culturally sensitive ways. Many attempts to market to Christians have backfired, because the marketers had little understanding of Christians’ values, taboos, and "hot buttons". Yet the size of the opportunity is enormous. Faith-Based Marketing provides everything business leaders need to understand 140 million Christian consumers and effectively reach them. It explains who Christians are, what they want, and provides traditional, new media, and word-of-mouth strategies to communicate with and engage them and their churches. The book also includes a valuable directory of top Christian organizations, churches, and events, to help marketers and business leaders find out whom to contact and how. The book includes a free subscription to a companion website with bonus content.

Most churches are not as effective as they could be in their marketing ministry because printed communications are not seen as vital and essential tools in church growth. Often, church publications primarily consist of getting the bulletin and newsletter completed, plus whatever flyers people need for youth group meetings or the church potluck. This book gives a simple how-to explanation of how to implement a church marketing plan. Using church growth paradigms combined with proven marketing strategies and specific publication techniques, this book shows pastors, church leaders, and administration staff how to produce publications that will grow their churches and change the lives of people in congregations. This book assists pastors and other church leaders intentionally move people from one stage of church growth to the next.

How can we preach persuasively without huckstering, manipulating, or coercing people? Sadly, we are seeing the fall of many pastors not for reasons of sexual immorality, but the pursuit of pride and power. The skillful use of marketing methods creates celebrity pastors who become significant influencers in the evangelical church. The lure of success is seductive, turning pastors into hucksters and Christians into consumers. We need to heed the warnings of the New Testament about the pride of rhetoric and the pursuit of power. David Christensen carefully analyzes the biblical warnings of Paul about the temptations of rhetorical sophistry in the first-century church and applies them to pastoral ministry today. God calls preachers to be ethical and effective persuaders. David develops an ethical grid for pastoral persuasion using principles drawn from the Bible and social science along with practical illustrations from his years of ministry. He calls preachers to be ethical and effective persuaders by emphasizing the centrality of the word of God while depending on the power of the Spirit of God.

This book examines the complex relationship between religion and business in twentieth-century America. It is the story of how Christianity’s most basic institution, the local church, wrestled with the challenges and compromises of competing in the modern marketplace through adopting the advertising, public relations, and marketing methods of business. It follows these sacred promoters, and their critics, as they navigated between divinely inspired and consumer demanded. Amid an animated and contentious battleground for principles, practices and parishioners, John C. Hardin explores the landscape of selling religion in America and its evolution over the twentieth century.