Ministry Marketing CoachMinistry Branding and Marketing that Works

Here’s some food for thought as we head into the height of the Christian conference season.  In most cases you should pay more attention to what is average than what is outstanding. Sound crazy? Read on!

In ministry there’s always the really successful minister or ministry that everyone wants to emulate.  Over the years the names change, the tactics of the ministry gurus vary, but the great temptation of many pastors is to imitate others. This is a factor that seems to have always been a part of the world of ministry.  People see the big successes of others and assume if they do the same things they do, they too will experience the same results.

We in the ministry love to benchmark what other pastors or churches do. We like to study great movements of spiritual revival or spontaneous outbursts of church planting in history in hopes we can see the same results in our times in our communities.

Gurus are made when someone makes a list of the characteristics that the uncanny events of church history have in common –and out pops a recipe for ministry success that is put in books, seminars, and implemented in strategies in ministries all over the world. (No need to wonder why the Lord compares the church to sheep!)

It might be a good idea to benchmark the good principles you find in other ministries, but there is a danger of self-deception that is inherent in imitating even the best ministries.  Many ministry leaders are frustrated and discouraged because they are constantly comparing themselves to other more “successful” ministries when they shouldn’t be.

I wonder how much great local ministry is left undone, because ministry leaders are too busy chasing after trying to be considered as one of the nationally known trend-setting ministries.

Sometimes the worst thing you can do is try to become a huge success!

A good book on this topic is The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine and the author of The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More, talks about it in this quote from his review of Taleb’s book:

“Four hundred years ago, Francis Bacon warned that our minds are wired to deceive us. “Beware the fallacies into which undisciplined thinkers most easily fall–they are the real distorting prisms of human nature.” Chief among them: “Assuming more order than exists in chaotic nature.” Now consider the typical stock market report: “Today investors bid shares down out of concern over Iranian oil production.” Sigh. We’re still doing it.

Our brains are wired for narrative, not statistical uncertainty. And so we tell ourselves simple stories to explain complex thing we don’t–and, most importantly, can’t–know. The truth is that we have no idea why stock markets go up or down on any given day, and whatever reason we give is sure to be grossly simplified, if not flat out wrong.”

Christian “gurus” often really have no idea how they became successful

All Christian books should not be measured by “Purpose Driven Life” because most books will never sell at the rate that book sold. And I can tell you with some confidence statistically that Rick Warren, as good as he is, really has no idea why his book was such a success. That’s why you haven’t seen another 25 million best seller coming out of his more than fertile brain!

That’s not a slam against Rick, that’s just a point to say, one should not look at the exception as if it is the rule!  PDL is an uncanny, unexplainable success. God has more to do with it than Zondervan’s marketing strategy.   Otherwise Greg Stielstra’s book (who worked for Zondervan on PDL’s marketing)  PyroMarketing (which I read and liked very much, BTW) would be a better selling book than it is.

Chris Anderson continues…

“The problem, Nassim explains, is that we place too much weight on the odds that past events will repeat (diligently trying to follow the path of the “millionaire next door,” when unrepeatable chance is a better explanation). Instead, the really important events are rare and unpredictable. He calls them Black Swans, which is a reference to a 17th century philosophical thought experiment. In Europe all anyone had ever seen were white swans; indeed, “all swans are white” had long been used as the standard example of a scientific truth. So what was the chance of seeing a black one? Impossible to calculate, or at least they were until 1697, when explorers found Cygnus atratus in Australia.

Nassim argues that most of the really big events in our world are rare and unpredictable, and thus trying to extract generalizable stories to explain them may be emotionally satisfying, but it’s practically useless. September 11th is one such example, and stock market crashes are another. Or, as he puts it, “History does not crawl, it jumps.” Our assumptions grow out of the bell-curve predictability of what he calls “Mediocristan,” while our world is really shaped by the wild powerlaw swings of “Extremistan.”

Take the gurus with a grain of salt!

Successful ministries are often not what they seem. Or even what they think they are themselves. Sometimes the leaders of these ministries seem like they have it all together, but the truth is, they have no idea how or why they have become a success.  Really, the King has no clothes, he just doesn’t know it.

Only God knows what’s really going on here. I have no problem leaving it up to him. I want to be faithful in my context. I love good ideas. But I have to be careful not to fall into the trap of becoming enamored to a particular approach. It’s much better for me to know the community I serve in and the people I serve, than to read all the books and attend all the seminars.

So as you attend the conferences around the country. Keep in mind Francis Bacon’s warning that your mind will tempt you into thinking that you can just do what they did and you too will be a success. Your mind will start to wander and you will see yourself up on that platform in a couple of years telling people what they should do. With that great vision, you might be tempted to head back to your church and rip it to shreds trying to implement something that really will never be a good fit for them, or for your community.

Don’t believe me? Ask around.

Stay tuned for more on this topic…