And yet, and yet…

I ran across the profile of my friend Kenny Klinglesmith today (you can follow him here: https://kennyklinglesmith.substack.com/) and he had started a discussion on the value of flashy marketing versus slow and steady brand growth. You might think it strange for a pastor to be interested in a topic like this, but it has been a debate that I’ve interacted with for a long time with regards to the church.

Here’s the big question: Is it wrong for a church to utilize marketing?

Now, at first glance, this kind of language causes folks to bristle. The church is supposed to be about the gospel and worship. Isn’t it manipulative to use marketing for your church? Isn’t it just a tool of money-grubbing?

I think it’s important in this conversation to take a step back and consider the wording. What do we mean when we say marketing? In the business world, this is placing your product into the spaces that people buy the product, while presenting it in a persuasive and attractive way. If you’re going to sell a pizza (or at a baser level, persuade a person to interact with your pizza) then it makes sense that you would want to put the most persuasive depiction of that pizza out there. Thus the pizza will find many happy homes in people’s stomachs.

In the work of the church, we absolutely market the gospel. But not for the same reason as the pizza above. We’re not putting out a service for people to pay for, we are opening the door to the life saving gospel of Jesus Christ. And here’s a fact that I think is imperative for Christians to understand: evangelism to an extent is marketing (maybe presentation is the better word?). We are taking the information and the love of the gospel and make it readily available for people to engage with.

The gospel is designed for reception by presentation. And this is the core of what marketing is.

Now, there is absolutely an “event horizon” beyond which I think marketing becomes insidious for churches. Corruption consists of good principles used in the wrong way.

There is kindness and compassion in marketing a church well in the community. It opens the door to those who have not experienced or been confronted by the gospel for salvation. It makes a statement that churches actually do want people of all walks of life to interact and connect in the faith family. Effective church marketing helps people understand that there is a purpose and meaning for each person to belong. And disciplined, righteous church marketing does so without an expectation of monetary ROI. Jesus’s marketing invites people to grace. “My yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

The “event horizon” for marketing a church is when it spills over into greed and territorialism. When a church starts using marketing to manipulate people, they begin wielding a tool for disaster. Here’s a telling question for the way your church advertises: if a person wound up going to another church and receiving Jesus as Lord there as a result of your advertising, would you still have spent the money? Grace says yes.

There is a flip side to this argument as well. There is kindness and compassion in spending resources and time to slow-grow a solid community of faith where people are discipled and cared for. This is biblical integrity and completing the purpose of the gathering of the faith family. A church is a place where you should be known, cared for, and sent to see the gospel thrive in your community. This is grace in action. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

The “event horizon” for spending resources internally in a church is self-satisfaction and pride. When a church is content or prideful about the experience they have, the community they’ve developed, the language they use, the kind of people that are there, then grace sputters. One of the plagues that churches routinely fall into is that they are “all about discipleship”, which becomes a code for “we don’t care if new people come to hear the gospel.” Churches unwittingly do this because it feels good to run the program, study the Bible, and establish a routine. But remember our definition of corruption above. Good things used for the wrong purposes reap corruption. Here’s a good question for the way your church inwardly focuses: if a person came for the first time and found a place to belong and be accepted but the newcomer made people in the church a bit uncomfortable with a new personality there, would you still open that door wide? Grace says yes.

So like most things, the church that follows Jesus is a both/and proposition. We both spend our resources and passion to open the door wide and our resources and passion to give people a place to grow in the gospel. And while it seems like its impossible to do both/and, God gives us the answer in the people themselves. What is the bridge that we look for to accomplish these things?

This is why Paul tells the leaders of the early church that their job is the “equipping of the saints for ministry.” Many churches falter in both phases of marketing and discipleship because they make it about the ministry of the pastor, or in cruder terms the charisma and entertainment value of the staff. If the ministry of the church is tied directly to a minister, the gulf widens between the invitation in and the discipleship within.

But when a church equips the people invited in and the people who are being discipled to serve one another in ministry, the both/and naturally occurs. You develop a people who are excited to grow in Christ and to welcome others into that growth. It demolishes pride because this ministry of service isn’t about personal gain. It demolishes greed because they serve for the good of others, not for what they can give us. This kind of church goes beyond marketing and discipleship to active grace.

So when you find yourself thinking about the rightness of marketing in the church world, I hope you’ll consider the both/and. I hope that you’ll remember that marketing the gospel to persuade people to come to Christ through the local church is evangelism. I hope that you’ll remember that programming in the church is designed to grow people into Christ-likeness, always inviting new people into the journey. I hope that you’ll remember the faith family of the church is not a place just to be served, but to serve.

I hope you’ll market the grace you’ve freely received with open hands, to the glory of Jesus.

Signs and wonders, y’all.

¹⁴ How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? ¹⁵ And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” ¹⁶ But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” ¹⁷ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ. Romans 10:14-17