Marketing Tips from Christian Community Church

Dave Ferguson, the lead pastor at Community Christian Church, shares the three keys to creating a big weekend at his church.

1. Marketing - If mailing postcards, Dave recommends mailing to each household 1-3 pieces for awareness and 4-6 pieces for action. Recently, they tried something new and launched a web-based campaign and also used door hangers and yard signs.

2. Inviting - CCC challenges its people to commit to bring three people.

3. Wow! - Lastly, they make sure to create a “Wow!” experience for first time guests.

Marketing Tips from Fellowship Church

Some excerpts:

• Banners and signage outside the church are worth every penny. Many visitors have told us that they saw our signs and logged on to our Miami campus website for more information.
• We made sure the front page of [the website] is very easy to navigate with important information prominently displayed, and also included content that would give them a taste of the Fellowship Miami experience.
• Because of a press release we filed two weeks ago with national and local news agencies, the Miami Herald was on site covering our Kickoff Weekend.
• Nothing beats one-on-one dialogue. Whether we are in local stores, restaurants or just waiting in line somewhere, we strike up conversations with the people around us. Building relationships within the community is the most successful form of outreach available.
• Our staff personally calls each first time visitor. And we’re making a special effort to call in the evenings so we can actually talk to the visitors, answer questions and invite them back.
• We know that our overall vision for this environment will take time to achieve. But we are taking immediate, easy steps (and lots of volunteer elbow grease) to upgrade the campus by planting additional landscaping and applying fresh paint. We’ve brought in some more modern wood tables for hospitality areas. We’re adding music, Cuban coffee and local pastries to create a welcoming atmosphere. And we’re fanatical about keeping the facility sparkling clean!
• A positive attitude and huge smile are tremendous assets in attracting people to any church. We have a team of floaters (greeters) who circulate throughout the entrance and areas outside the worship center, so visitors usually are engaged in several conversations before they sit down. The parking lot entrance is flanked by greeters who wave at passing traffic and incoming cars. In fact, we just talked to some visitors recently who said they turned around and came back because we waved at them!

More on Church Marketing

Here are some more links I've found. Most are from Church Relevance.

10 Big Web Photography Mistakes

15 Questions for the Perfect Postcard

How to Get what your Postage Pays For

Online Children’s Ministry Check-In System

Three Lessons about Owning a Website

Some useful tips on domain names.

Influencing Culture - Gabe Lyons

Gabe Lyons is the co-founder of The Fermi Project, the organization that put on Q. This is a great read if you'd like to understand more about the Church's role in shaping culture.

Review of Cities of God

Here's a review of Rodney Stark's newest book, Cities of God. I just ordered it, and am looking forward to reading it.

Copyright Issues

Note: I haven't listened to this yet, so I'm not sure how good it is.

Free Creative Content from LifeChurch.tv

Church = a self-theologizing community?

I like what I've been reading by this guy! This is the second part of his review of Breaking the Missional Code. Stetzer and Putnam refer to three types of emergent churches: relevants, reconstructionists, and revisionists. They appreciate and promote the first two types, but warn against the third type. You can read more here.

Bolger is not so sure that being a revisionist is so bad. (Actually, he doesn't like the term revisionist, so he uses a self-theologizing, which is pretty different). Here's what he writes:

In the nineteenth century, Rufus Anderson and Henry Venn contributed a new idea to missiology -- that of the three-self formula. They advocated that a new church work or mission, if it is to become indigenous, must be self-supporting, self-propagating, and self-governing. My colleague, Charles Van Engen, mission theologian (and former President of the Reformed Church of America), advocates a fourth 'self' -- self-theologizing. Why his addition to the formula?

A new community must be self-theologizing or it will become nominal. Self-theologizing, how? To become an indigenous expression of faith, a community must form its life around scripture, engaging their culture within a praxis-reflection orientation. In other words, the community goes deep into the word in order to answer the questions of their culture. They 'practice' those answers in the world, and then reflect biblically again. Instead of self-theologizing, however, what frequently happens is that new faith communities are given a theology that answers nineteenth-century questions, or sixteenth-century questions, or fifth-century questions. These historical works will undoubtedly be helpful, but they will inevitably leave some questions unanswered. Each context presents its own issues. If the deep questions of a culture go unanswered, then Christians will seek answers elsewhere, without reference to scripture, thus inviting in nominality.

What Stetzman and Putman call revisionist I see as self-theologizing: reading scripture in light of a culture's questions. These emerging "self-theologians" copy the example of historical theologians engaging their particular culture) but they do not necessarily copy their responses.

Bounded and Centered

This post is a review by Ryan Bolger on Breaking the Missional Code, by Ed Stetzer and David Putnam. In the review he critiques their use of Christian and non-Christian, believing that it implies "that that church is inherently good and unchurched is correspondingly bad." Instead, he believes that a better language might be in order. He prefers the terms "bounded and centered."

Tim Keller gives the following descriptions of bounded and centered sets...

In mathematics, there are two different ways to define a 'set'. One is a 'bounded set'. A point is in the set if it is related properly to (i.e. if it is inside) the boundary. Another is the 'centered set'. A point is in the set if it is related properly to (i.e. if it is in alignment with or moving toward) the center of the set. Organizations that are 'bounded sets' put great emphasis on the lines of demarcation 'around the circle' – at all points. 1) A person cannot work with or be part of the organization in any meaningful sense without the rite of initiation and the adoption of extensive standards which set the person apart. 2) Differences between members and the outside world are emphasized. 3) Membership is defined in terms of common beliefs and policies and folkways that are pretty extensive. Organizations that are centered-sets put more emphasis on central goals and commitments. 1) A person can work with the organization as long as it shares basic goals and is willing to work for them. 2) Differences between members and the outside world are not emphasized. 3) Membership is defined in terms of active participation toward common tasks and goals.

Bolger says it this way: "What matters is not whether we are in or out (churched or unchurched), but instead it is our direction that matters – are we moving closer to the King (or Kingdom) or moving further away?"

He goes on to say:

Why is that important? Well, given our knowledge of history, we see that some churches do not exhibit kingdom aspects -- they do not manifest the fruits of the spirit, nor do they stand for justice in the world. Using Hiebert’s rubric, these churches would be moving away from the center. Conversely, some unchurched people serve the poor (among many other good things) and are moving in God’s direction. Again, we measure what we value, and church, apart from kingdom activities, becomes a club, a lifestyle enclave, a meaningless endeavor. Indeed, the church is dependent on its mission for its very identity. So, kingdom and movement are better markers of faithfulness to the gospel than are churched and unchurched.

My friend Linda Bergquist first explained bounded and centered sets to me about four years ago. I have to admit that at first I really didn't understand what she was talking about. However, as I have been placed by God into cultures that were either apathetic or hostile to the gospel and to church, I have begun to see the importance of this.

Follow Me

Mark Batterson gives some thoughts on the simplicity of Jesus' message of discipleship.

Just wanted to share a thought. I've been reflecting on the simplicity of Jesus' invitation: follow me. That invitation is repeated twenty times in the gospels.

Find Your Own Calcutta

Can I share a goal? I never want NCC to feel like a church. I want us to feel like a movement. The church is way too static these days! The church is called to knock down the gates of hell. The church is the vehicle whereby heaven invades hell.

That is why the world resonated with Mother Teresa. She brought heaven to a hell hole. By the way, I love the advice Mother Teresa gave when someone asked them how they could make a difference with their life the way she'd made with hers. Mother Teresa said, "Find Your Own Calcutta."

Rethinking Discipleship

The National New Church Conference was taking place at the same time I was at Q. David Putnam, co-author of Breaking the Missional Code, taught a breakout session. Here are the notes. They're very good.

Missional Families - Bob Roberts

Each person has to determine how they are called to incarnationally live out the Gospel and the principles of the Kingdom in their own context of work, neighborhood, community, nation and world.