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Please Don’t Dis Your Sister Church!
By chris | June 24, 2008
Who is thinking about the big picture with where all our individual church marketing is leading in terms of total impact on our communities for evangelization? Shouldn’t we all be working together so that a greater number of all people in our towns are exposed to the message of the gospel–and not just be satisfied with filling up the church we happen to be with? Healthy ministry marketing should strive to build-up all churches, or at least, not contribute to erroneous perceptions about other churches that may be held by the unchurched.
A Bad Use of Ministry Marketing Positioning
Yet, when I see churches positioning other churches as “hypocritical, boring, asking for money all the time, etc” they may think they are doing a service to their church’s marketing, but they are actually hurting it.
Yes, many churches don’t have it together and a lot may be boring and some ask for money too much. There is not a church in the world that is “hypocrite free.” Those problems in other churches are not your church’s marketing opportunity, they are illustrations of your church community’s spiritual health. Let your church set an example for the dysfunctional churches of a better way. If your church is not any of these things, just be good about it, and like Matthew said:
“…let your light shine before people in such a way that they will see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16 NIV)
Don’t position your church against these other churches–position your church’s message using an understanding about the perceptions and personal issues that are keeping the people you want to reach from giving church a try. You don’t need to dis your sister church to do that!
When churches use positioning against other churches to attract unreached people by playing to the misperceptions of unchurched people (implying that other churches are bad and not theirs) they actually do more than make people think different about their church. They reinforce the prejudices of people who don’t go to church about church-going in general.
Only so many people really respond to that type of church mud-slinging anyway. Many more unchurched see the promotional materials from that church and have excuses put in their mouths for why they don’t attend any church.
God forbid you send out a mailer that says, “Love God, Hate Church?” and it create for some the internal argument that shuts out the idea of going to any church at all. I can see it now, a guy opens his mail box and reads the slick postcard and starts thinking, “Yeah, I love God, but I hate church…that’s it, that’s why I don’t go to church, my intense love for God! Thanks HipChurch.tv–I am staying home for Jesus!”
Before you dismiss the idea that that can happen, consider this analogy from Social Norms Theory a behavior change theory used in Social Marketing. There is real marketing research and successful marketing programs that are based on this exact concept. Perceived societal norms influence people everyday!
An Example from Social Norms Theory in Social Marketing
When students attend college, they may assume binge-drinking is the norm on campus. If they think that, when they see a gathering of students drinking, they think, “There goes some of that normative college binge-drinking behavior”. In short, they would have their suspicions confirmed.
But if media were developed to help students know that only a small percentage of college students are binge-drinkers (which is true BTW), and that such drinking is not normative they would likely “see” the gathering of students differently.
They would think, “Oh, there is one of those gatherings of the minority of students who binge-drink—stay away from that. I want to be normal!” If the media campaign also “packaged” alternative, constructive behaviors for college students, you would see a change in campus life and a decrease in the percentage of binge-drinking among the student population.
It really happens!
When You dis Other Churches You Are Not Doing Your Church Any Favors!
In the same way, you don’t want to inadvertantly reinforce a negative societal norm perception that is damaging to the general Christian church’s outreach. But you can do just that if you send out messages about how “other” churches are mostly “boring, greedy, etc.” You may think you are marketing your church, but could actually be doing counter-Christian propaganda by helping to confirm the suspicions of people who don’t go to church and could be helping justify their behavior of not visiting any church near them.
Unchurched may think that since the majority of churches are bad (thanks to your advertising that they are–and as far as they are concerned, you should know, since you are a church), what is the point of trying? Sure, some may actually believe what you say and go to your church, but many more others may be turned off to church. Do the ends justify the means in this case?
And do you actually believe that your church is so much better than the other ones?
“Pride goes before destruction,a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18 NIV)
We need to be looking for an approach to ministry marketing that is compatible with the Bible teaching about how we are all (churches of all stripes) members of one another…
“And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.” 1 Corinthians 12:26
In light of this verse, when you dishonor another Christian church, you dishonor your own. I think it is a shame if a church reaches people for their church by perpetuating the false beliefs of unchurched people!
Topics: Uncategorized |
July 16th, 2008 at 8:37 am
I think one can go even farther than simply not dishonoring other churches — one can actually build other churches up and, at the same time, build your own.
An example from our little New England church is our “Houses of Worship” page –
http://www.trinitylimerock.org/2003/houses_of_worship.htm
–where we provide a directory of other churches of all denominations in our area for the convenience of anyone who does not find ours to their taste.
Interestingly, in the five years we’ve had that page out there, it has turned out to be one of the “stickier” pages on our site in terms of people who land there — often while searching for another church by name — and decide to look around on our website to check us out.