I wish churches would give up on the whole marketing thing. As someone who works in the corporate world and makes a healthy living in the world of marketing, I’m telling you with some authority that marketing is not for churches and here’s why:

1. Pastors are not marketing experts. They like to think they are, but they do a miserable job at it. Why? Because unlike a business that adjusts depending on the response it gets from it’s consumers, pastors tend to react by blaming the consumers.
2. Pastors don’t have the education to be a marketer. Think about this (and I know this is insulting to some seminary professors)…the highest educated or most successful people in marketing do not end up teaching this specialization at a seminary.
3. Marketing is a dynamic field with constant change. Most pastors are still trying marketing methods that are 20 years old. They have not kept up with the trend changes or church research and adjusted accordingly.  Bill Hybels still has a huge following supporting seeker sensitive churches, yet Bill has admitted this was a horrible method and did damage to the church.  Yet pastors still do it.  Bad marketing…
4. Trying to market your church is running your church like a business…much like the moneychangers Jesus chased out of the temple. Jesus says His Father’s house is a house of prayer. When was the last time you saw pastors call for real and sincere prayer during Sunday service? They don’t for fear of losing market share to the church down the street.

I know it doesn’t sound like it, but I’m writing this article because I care about pastors and the church and I want them to wake up and make some changes. The fact is pastors complain about their parishioners being “church shoppers”, but they made them that way! So wake up pastors! Now you have to fix the problem you created. And the only way to do that is by following Jesus.

Jesus didn’t “market” the truth. Jesus commanded people everywhere to repent of their sin for the Kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus didn’t hide the truth either and tell His followers not to worry about the scriptures. On the contrary, Jesus opened the scriptures up to the understanding of His disciples and pointed them to prophecy concerning His ministry. Why? So they would know the Truth and it would set them free.

People are looking for authentic Christianity today, stop it with the shows and the fake platitudes…we’re looking for Jesus.