If you wanna read the article, visit Church Marketing Sucks, but please remember that as Christians we should strive to be Christ-like in our actions and responses.

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Here are five great Twitter ideas you can use for your church communication efforts:

1. Celebrations: Every time a person dedicates their life to Jesus, gets married in the church, or does something awesome you can tell the world and you church members about it!
2. Prayer: While you may want to be careful on what details you provide, you can ask your Twitter followers to pray for a specific need or person — or just offer a short daily prayer people can read and feel energized by.
3. Events: You can easily keep your congregation or church members informed of planned gatherings (or even spontaneous get together’s) by sending Twitter updates — or why not use it to invite people to church in a non-threatening way?
4. Sermons or Message: Why not drop a link into your conversation and let people know you have a new sermon or message uploaded so they can listen or watch if they missed it?
5. Community Dialogue: People in your community will probably be on Twitter and you can begin conversations on pressing needs in your town, schools, or other churches.  You can discuss social issues to religion to sports…all great things for building trust and building your church “brand”.

The truth is your church will need to start taking risks and using tools such as Facebook, Blogs, and Twitter to establish connection points with the people you want to reach or help.  Just don’t let it take a back seat to personal attention and care as these will/should always be the staple in creating strong relationships in a church!

So what are you waiting for?  Go get started on Twitter today!

Please feel free to follow James Dalman on Twitter (http://twitter.com/jamesdalman)

You can also download my FREE ROCKIN’ TWITTER BIRD ICONS to plug into your site.

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It allows us to communicate in a way that is totally different from traditional websites, blogs, and e-mails.  You can tie in Twitter with your FaceBook account, send voice mesages to Twitter using your phone, TwitPic your photos, and even synch it with your Google iCalendar. The applications are many and you should consider using it for your church or ministry.

Anthony Coppedge (whom I’d love to meet and have missed at a few conferences) launched a website called Twitter for Churches (www.twitterforchurches.com) and offers a PDF book called “The Reason Your Church MUST Twitter” for only $5.00!  Having read Anthony’s posts in the past, I think this is going to be a great read and recommend checking out his new website.

Twitter could help your ministry to communicate more efficiently or carry on conversations with people in your community.  Don’t miss the boat.

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People have asked me if they really should brand their church or if it’s really necessary for a church to use the same methods that Starbucks or Harley Davidson does.  My response is that if you have any interaction with a live person they will form some type of opinion about you or your church, so yes, branding your church is necessary.

The reality is that a consumer or visitor is going to make an assumption about your church that may or may not be totally correct.  This is why their experience with you must be great and your connection points (website, receptionist, brochure, servant evangelism) must be right on.  Please note that I am not saying to be perfect or flawless but whatever connection they might make with your church first (and even second or third) it should be great enough to leave the right impression.

If you are promoting the friendliest church in town and your receptionist gets hateful answering the phone, you have just made a huge disconnection!  If your website communicates a youthful and emerging worship and it’s an oldschool, traditional service – you have just dropped the ball.  In the past, mistakes could easily be overlooked by visitors but in our finicky culture of today, it’s more difficult to unscrew our screw ups.

My advice is to invest in branding your church. This doesn’t necessarily mean a logo or a website, and it doesn’t even mean spending any money.  Just make sure that you do your best to communicate a positive and accurate impression through all possible entry/connection points into your church and if a person does connects the dots, it forms the right picture.

This is what real branding is all about!

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I recently asked a pastor about how the Exponential Conference went last week and before he replied the word jumped into my head – commercialized. He said the conference was more about speakers promoting their books and agendas than church planting. I won’t go into my personal experience with the National New Church Conference but I can totally see my friend’s point of view.

Christianity has become too commercialized in some aspects and I think we need to get a reign on it.

It appears in some circles that selling books, CD’s, sermon series, speaking gigs, metrosexual identities, and being the top blogger is the “in thing”. This has really been observed in the church planting world and evident by the groupies who continually blog about stalking their idol at conferences or who market their personal blog more than their church…all the while wearing long sleeve black shirts with big collars unbuttoned to their chest with faded jeans, Doc Martens, and a soul patch or frosted hair to match.

You know what I would like to hear more about and see?

Jesus Christ, biblical inerrancy, small guys in the trenches, life transformation, spiritual discipline, serving and washing feet, becoming the least, humility, toned down church marketing and advertising, and the realization that people NOT in church or our faith see what’s happening but many Christians don’t.

Please know that I have personally struggled with these issues myself and I thank Jesus every day that I see in a new perspective. I’m jacked up too, but friends, we have to start looking at Christianity in America through a new lenses or we will reap what we have sown.

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It is so easy to compare ourselves to another church or a church leader or church planter. We look at others and benchmark our success (or failures) by what they have achieved. Churches try to duplicate other churches or some of us attempt to be the clone of Mark Driscoll, Craig Groeschel, or David Crowder (goatee and all). But what works for them isn’t going to work for us – not to mention that God has called us to be ourselves in the situation He has given us.

God has uniquely made you. Celebrate it. Live it out loud!

We can learn from others but the best thing we can do for ourselves, our team, and our organization is to be true to who we’re called to be or the vision we have been given…not someone else’s.

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OK, so I am going a little overboard but the script is not too far fetched!

Churches are duping others.  They are trying to clone themselves into Mars Hill (either one), Life Church.tv, Fellowship Church.tv, Willow Creek, NorthPoint Community Church, Saddleback Church,  National Community Church, Granger Community Church, and so on.

For the love of the Kingdom and our sanity, please stop.  Look within, instead of looking out.  I get the opportunity to visit with a lot of Jesus loving and sincere pastors and church planters but if I hear one more tell me “we want to emulate what ______________ church has done because that’s us” , I am going to take my blaster and use it on them, and no, it won’t be set for stun.

I’m not trying to be mean but NO it’s not you, it is them.  Be yourself and start finding a way to break the mold.  Why do we feel we need to clone the superstar or walk in the shadows of somebody else?  I could personally use a lot of improvement but there’s no way that I want to be anyone but James Dalman as screwed up as I can be sometimes (but I might take the financial security of Bill Gates).  And I encourage church leaders and their teams to do the same.

You are screwed up and you aren’t the best.  That is absolutely OK!  Find what makes you unique and shout it out loud and stop asking me to make you into one of those other churches because I won’t do it and I can’t!  I can and will help you to discover and develop your brand though if you want me to…just as long as you don’t mind if I bring my lightsaber.

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I think this may be for three main reasons: worldliness, jealousy, or because some church communication efforts are just plain cheesy. Here’s a quick breakdown on each reason:

Worldliness. I understand that some church members and Christians view using the tools of the world as evil or that we are supposed to be in the world but not of it but this does not apply to this situation because these methods or tools can be used for God’s glory. God gave us talented people whose purpose is to tell His Story through art, design, media, storytelling, etc. If the focus is Jesus than are we really being worldly? I believe Paul would have considered blogging or direct mail to build the Kingdom. Don’t you?

Jealousy. I think that there are Christians who are envious of other Christian’s work or success and they become bitter about it. I shamefully admit that I have acted this way in the past. A person I know became wildly successful with an idea we had discussed and I become so jealous that I bad mouthed their business and the person. I did seek forgiveness and the relationship has been restored but it did cause a lot of pain. Unfortunately we are susceptible to these types of temptations and we should be happy when God gets the glory even if it means a church has better media stuff than we do.

Cheesiness. I think this is the big issue. There is a lot of crap when it comes to secular marketing and there is an equal amount when it pertains to church communications as well. I have seen brochures, advertising, and websites that just reek like Lindberg cheese. They look like materials that a snake-oil salesman would use and definitely reflect no emphasis on giving their best to God. I understand that not all churches have the budget, talent, or knowledge to have nice stuff. And in no way am I saying a church that has 1960′s brochures cannot be effective at reaching people with God’s Word. I think some people are turned off by bad marketing…but this can also go to the other extreme.

There are churches who have placed all their trust and money into looking uber-hip or being so slick that theiR communication tools look like you are going on a carnival cruise or trip to Disney World. There are even a few innovative” churches who are really pushing the edge on what may be acceptable and not acceptable for Christian marketing – such as using sex to sell a message or draw people in. I am all for discussing all aspects of scripture including sex, but I don’t think we need to use sexy images or innuendos to preach the Gospel. That is a sin.

I propose a balance. I believe that we can glorify Jesus Christ and His Church through excellence in media. We can take it up a notch and do our best to tell His story in a way that resonates with our culture including marketing and design! However, I also believe that we need to understand and remember that it is Jesus that transforms lives and not our marketing, worship experience, or dazzling media display and if we start placing our trust in these tools as a savior, taking them to the extreme, or idolizing these methods in any way then we can be justified in saying that this is a sin.

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I have to break from part two of my series on whether “Church Marketing is a Sin” to rant about how Christianity in America has become a highly lucrative business. Check out the current list of church conferences on the calendar this year (and this isn’t all of them):

• Healing Place Church Experience (have I ever said how sick I am of hearing the word experience and church together?)
• Unleash 2008
• Q (very short name I’d say but at least this looks like it actually has a bigger purpose)
• Orange: We hope you will join us this year for an authentic, dangerous and UNCENSORED experience! (Does this mean they’ll drop the F-Bomb?)
• Coast 2 Coast
• Externally Focused Conference: Transform your community. Transform your life. Hmmm…
• The White Board Sessions: You can get a whiteboard for under $20 at Staples.
  

PLUS, and I love this one…I can spend two days following the Senior Management Team of Granger Community Church for a cool $1,500.00 to get an inside look at how they do ministry. Are you really serious?!?

Please understand that I do not mean to sound harsh towards any of the people or their teams presenting at these conferences. I personally only know one presenter out of all of them (who has an ego the size of Texas) but I am sure that most of their hearts are for helping others build the Kingdom. I also ask Jesus for forgiveness in that this may not be the most Christ-like post or way to communicate my feeling about this topic. However my question is this:

Do we really need all these conferences to tell us how these leaders do their ministry or how to be effective at ours?

I don’t know whether it’s a conviction of the Spirit or common sense but it grieves me to think at how much money will be spent to attend and hear these speakers. I did some number crunching based off of an average on each conferences fees and the number of attendees they allow or “guestimate” based off the size or speakers at the event.

My very rough calculation = $2,185,940.00. That’s over two million dollars not including airfare, hotel, meals, and the “I was there” t-shirt.

Do we really need to spend over two million dollars to follow teams around for a day and watch how they interact with each other or to have churches who have been blessed with great growth tell us how “they” did it? Is it worth going to another conference to hear about another innovation, theory, or technique that may or may not work for our individual situation – or one that a church staff will never implement because they’re still working on the method from last year’s conference?

I know of many church planters who have been called to plant in their community who are doing a great work but are struggling because of financial support. I see people in my city who can’t afford a hot meal or warm place to sleep for one night. I know of single mothers who are working at least two jobs just to feed their children and keep the electricity on. I could mention the fact that some “on-fire” Christian leaders give more to buying conference tickets, books, and lattes than sending support to missionaries who look death in the eye every day for fulfilling the Great Commission.

I pray that church leaders, their teams, and congregations will wake up and realize that “the Church” has become just like corporate America. We have been blessed way beyond our dreams and we are now taking advantage of it. We talk of being missional yet some of us can’t even break beyond the missional motivation speech. Shame on us! American prosperity has definitely been a curse.

How about we spend more time in prayer, fasting, serving in our community, and listening to the hurt of others over spending more money on an expensive trip to tell us how we might do it and give it to better causes? And I point this to myself – an addicted lover of books and technology. Maybe it’s time to just go out and do it and learn for ourselves. After all, experience is the best teacher and Jesus Christ the best leader we could follow.

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Is Church Marketing A Sin? This question seems to be one which has lead many people to my blog and I think it is definitely worth discussing here.

I think we first have to look at the word “marketing”. Dictionary.com lists two main definitions:

1. The act of buying or selling in a market.
2. The total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.

Nothing there seems to go against the Bible – unless the activity might happen to involve something immoral or illegal. The Bible also contains stories of people who would more than likely sell their products or services; artisans, weapon makers, blacksmith’s, fishermen, doctors, shepherds, etc. Marketing in an honest form appears to not be sinful in and of itself.

The next roadblock and some of the arguments against church marketing are usually based off of Matthew 21:12-13; Jesus entered the temple area and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. “It is written,” he said to them, ” ‘My house will be called a house of prayer, but you are making it a ‘den of robbers.”

Does this scripture really apply to marketing a church? After all, the money-changers were selling their goods in the temple for a dishonest and unfair gain which is definitely wrong. The temple also wasn’t a place of worshiping God anymore and instead became a market place. No doubt this would upset Jesus and dishonor God because coming together as a church is for the purpose of worship, disciplining, and fellowship not for business transactions and networking.

But if we base our church marketing argument on this piece of scripture it would also be possible to think that Jesus meant He didn’t want people hocking their wares in church at all. Could selling goods in the church – baked pies, sermon messages, books, or worship CD’s be sinful activities? Most people would say no because these acts are not done in a way that dishonors God and actually helps spread the Gospel.

So what is the case of people thinking church marketing is a sin? What is it that doesn’t fit with the two words church and marketing? I’ll explore my hypothesis in the second part of this series.

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