Marketing God and the Church

For many years I believed that Church marketing was somehow wrong, maybe even sinful. I didn’t like the idea of having to sell God, God’s church, and God’s stuff like it was another brand of laundry soap. It just didn’t seem like the right thing to do. Then the Pastor with whom I was on staff died. He died unexpectedly, and suddenly I became the Interim Pastor. I also inherited his 7 am, 55 second radio spot, on the community’s largest radio station. Truth be told, I enjoyed writing and doing those almost one minute radio spots, a different one for each day. I purposely steered away from the churchy or religious stuff. No daily Bible devotions. I attempted to talk about real stuff like forgetting your shopping list and coming home with interesting groceries on new labels while forgetting the peanut butter and bread. At the end of those spots, I inherited and used the tag line, “Come and see us at the Church and we’ll talk about things like this.” I inherited, and for sixteen years kept going, a wonderful plan for marketing the church. I guess I never thought of those radio spots as marketing the church, but they were. I still don’t write or like daily devotions. I am more comfortable writing about forgetting the grocery list—you know, real live experiences because that’s where God hangs out.