Tim Schraeder writes “June 22 was a sad day at Park Community Church, we lost a dearly beloved friend … our weekly program.” (Thanks to Church Marketing Sucks writing Death to the Church Bulletin)
Chris Forbes writes: Diary of an Expensive Church Planting Marketing Outreach Flop. He writes:
Areas to think about when Planning a Marketing Campaign
Audience: When you buy media you are not buying media per se, you are buying eyes and ears of particular people. Audience comes first in media. When you have done your homework, you know who your audience is and you find the media channels that reach them best. When you don’t have a particular audience in mind, media sales people have a way of convincing you their media is the best way to reach people. Know the people you want to reach!
Use of Media: Think about media as the tools you use to travel to the audience you want to reach. It’s like traveling in a train. Say you wanted to get to New York City by train. You can’t get on just any train to get to New York. Imagine someone saying after failing to get to New York by train, “I tried train travel, but trains can’t get you to New York. The Devil wants to keep me outta NYC!” The fact is trains can get you to New York, if you take the right trains. You have to take a train that is going to New York. In the same way, you need the right media “vehicle” to get to your audience.
Mark Buchanan wrote “Wreck the Roof,” a reflection off of Mark 2 when the religious folk were upset that the friends made a whole in the roof to lower the paralytic.
Roof-tile Syndrome is when we are so caught up in the preaching of Jesus, we turn our backs to the needs of those still outside the building. We become barriers and not gateways. It’s when we care more about keeping things intact than about restoring lives that are shattered. It’s when we’re more upset when stuff gets broken than excited when the broken are mended. It’s when church gets reduced to the preaching of Jesus so that we fail to notice that we’re seeing very little of the forgiveness and healing of Jesus. It is when we are so fearful about upsetting the religious folk (or homeowners) in our midst that we stop taking risks to get people to Jesus.
It’s when my program, my office, my title, my privilege, my influence, my comfort takes precedence over others’ needs.
It’s when the church exists for itself; to hell with the rest of you.
George Bullard asks: When is a Congregation Finished With Transformation?
Actually the answer is never. Congregations must be continually transforming to be in full, active response to the pull of God in the direction of their full kingdom potential.
A better question is, when is a congregation successfully transforming? To that question there are several great answers.
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