Church marketing sucks

I've had real issue lately with church PR in general. I think so often, large Christian organizations, and small churches for that matter, forget that despite the Christians they reach with the message they send via advertising efforts, they also reach a large number of non-Christians who are often turned off by the way the message is presented. Be it bad grammar, spelling mistakes or statements that were obviously not reviewed by anyone before being stated for the media to pick up on and pick apart, the church has a long way to go in understanding just how important marketing is - good marketing. And likewise, just how horribly bad marketing can offend. It offends me, and I call myself a Christ follower. I can't imagine how it must offend people who don't associate with Christ. And isn't the point of Christianity to share Christ with the world. Maybe, we're not going about sharing him the right way.

I am not Catholic, but I do admire the Pope for a few reasons. One is that he has good PR. The media loves the Pope and the public loves him and I guarantee you a lot of it has to do with the advice he gets from other people about what to and what not to say. That doesn't mean that he doesn't speak the truth, it just means that he is careful in how he says it. Perhaps Christian organizations could learn something from him, too.

The following Web site is worth the read.

http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com