Churches Too Need Marketing
In this competitive world, churches have come to realize that they have to promote themselves, like any other business. They have a building to maintain and staff to pay. To put it simply, they must have people in the pews. What makes someone get up early, get dressed in their Sunday best and go to church? There’s lots of things they could do instead. They could have a lie in, eat a leisurely brunch or read the Sunday papers. Church marketing has to address the problem of falling church attendance.
It’s not enough for everyone to use the church for weddings, christenings and funerals. It costs a small fortune to heat and light a church all the year round and any structural damage to a church will necessitate a fundraising campaign. Many attempts have been made to modernize church marketing and bring the church into the 21st century. The clergy have got to relate to the younger generation or the churches won’t be sustainable. A lot of churches have web sites these days, to engage people in what they are doing. Some clergy use professional web designers and promotional experts in general.
The church is sometimes criticised for being outdated and pilloried at other times for being too trendy. Some churches have put on folk evenings and pop concerts. It helps if there is a church hall attached to the church, as that’s a money making opportunity. Then arguments break out as to what’s appropriate and what isn’t regarding the use of the church hall. It’s a shame that the world of commerce has to infiltrate the quest for spirituality but these are the harsh realities and church marketing is needed.
There is a modern trend for churches to have boards outside the church with witty homilies to amuse us. Some of these are quite clever and some are cringe worthy. Newsletters are often used to inform the community of the work of the church. Church marketing works best when it involves social issues, they need to convince people that the church is still relevant today. Some churches use modern hymns and dispense with traditional favourites. The clergy has to ask themselves what people need from the church.
Communication is the key and perhaps more radical ideas are needed. In the UK, the Archbishop of York has recently completed a week of sleeping in a tent, pitched in the church. He also fasted for the week and this was part of a campaign to stop the fighting in Iraq. It won’t be approved of by all the clergy establishment but it certainly worked as a piece of PR. Sometimes, church marketing has to reach out and say something about the world and not just about repairing the church roof.
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[…] It may be the home of the lord but it has to be run by money made by people like you and me. Old methods do not work as the church also has many mouths to feed. To know more about church marketing read our article, “Churches Too Need Marketing“. This entry was posted on Thursday, January 11th, 2007 at 10:51 pm and is filed under Religion. […]
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