Ministry Marketing CoachMinistry Branding and Marketing that Works

In the food for thought category:  Ever read a marketing book and get that strange familiar feeling, “Haven’t I seen this someplace before?” Well, actually you have because advertising and marketing (product, political, social, all kinds) borrows heavily in origins from the communication philosophy inherent in Christianity.

Both advertising and evangelism are built on the presupposition that communication has the power to change people’s behavior. The early days of mass media are also the heady days of the Great Awakening.  Many concepts inadvertently influenced the inception of modern media in the beginnings of the United States.

In his book “Christianity and the Mass Media in America,” Dr. Quentin Schultze talks about this saying that at the founding of the mass media, “The advertiser and the preacher were two sides of the same rhetorical strategy–conversion”

This is one reason that is it seemed natural that freedom of the press and freedom of religion were mentioned in the same amendment of the constitution in the United States. The rhetoric of conversion, Schultze talkes about is present in all kinds of communication in American media and evangelicalism.

The First Amendment:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”