Church Marketing

In our annual church budget meeting, a member asked if we allocated money for marketing our church. The lady’s comment about the “marketing budget” has had me chewing for the last few days. Is our church inviting and welcoming? How do we attract new members? How do we get the numbers up? I have asked many of these questions throughout my time as a believer. These questions are, in my opinion, the wrong way around. 

I agree that we should welcome newcomers, but I think that group should be the minority against the people we invite/ introduce. Is our goal to attract people to our building, or is it to attract them to our lives? When we invite people to church, it is not asking them to a building or a service. It is inviting them into our lives. 

Church marketing is called evangelism in the Bible. We attempt to absolve our duty to go and make disciples by making our buildings more attractive. How backward is this? We say come to me instead of going to them. Our lives should be the only marketing the body of Christ needs.

Technology should be solely for information communication, not bait to entice the next member. If attraction becomes the basis to which a member joins, it will be the same reason they used to go elsewhere. If the reasoning relies upon the covenantal relationship, then the thought of leaving is not seriously considered. 

The same principle applies to marriage. Marriage is an institution that God takes seriously and leaves little room for us to break the covenant. Therefore, only a few reasons for leaving a church body that can be honoring to God and his church. The idea of attracting members is an example of why I often cringe at the term “church shopping.” The members are judged based on their ability to appeal to my tastes.

The church that God leads us to is often the one that presents the most challenges. Like in marriage, the best ones show us the worst about ourselves. They are a mirror in which we cannot hide from the things we loathe about ourselves—exposing the calluses that God will remove layer by layer, refining us each time to make us look more like Christ.