MARKETING the CHURCH

Do you know the difference between sales and marketing? They are certainly synonyms, but there is a subtle difference. A salesman presents a product to potential buyers persuading some to purchase it. Men have been practicing salesmanship in every culture throughout history.

A good salesman can sell anything to anybody. He can sell sand to the Saudis and ice to the Eskimos. Marketing on the other hand focuses the whole process from production to repair service on sales. Marketing changes the way an item is packaged so it attracts buyers. Marketing is the art of designing a product to meet the buyer's needs. Marketing begins before design and manufacturing. A marketing team goes to the Saudis and Eskimos to ask them what they really want in the first place.

I think marketing is great in most areas of life. I would rather salesmen sell me what I already want than try to convince me that I need what they have to sell.

Since Americans have become a society of consumers, it should not surprise us, that marketing has been brought into the church; with terrific results in some areas. We have come to the unchurched to ask them what kind of church they would like. We asked people what kind of music they liked, so now we have rock and roll with Christian lyrics. Next we decided to poll people to find out what they thought their deepest needs were.

When people said they needed more self-esteem, we began to show them how knowing God made people feel better about themselves. People said they wanted to know how to raise their children, manage their finances and live happier lives. And we were experts on those things.

People said they wanted to have more fun, so we began to show them how much fun church can be. Some people said they wanted healing and we prayed for healing, as we should have. We also let them believe that earthly healing was as important to God as repentance and eternal life. Others wanted success. And we began to point out promises of health and prosperity, conveniently forgetting to mention the crosses and persecutions that were also promised.

Pastors' all over the country began preaching what they called, "need sermons." Many admitted that what people thought they needed might not be what God called needs. So we coined the term, "felt-need." This term applied to needs that were painful enough for people to recognize them. We said we were addressing felt-needs so we would have the opportunity to minister to real needs.

Interestingly enough, the more preachers preached on felt-needs the less we preached on sin and hell, the cross of Christ or radical repentance. These unpleasant little truths were not quiet what people were looking for.

In fact the heart of what the Bible teaches is not compatible with marketing, or any idea of salesmanship for that matter. The Bible says "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?" What the heart of an unbeliever desires will never lead him to God. Unbelievers love darkness rather than light.

Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me." No one is looking for a cross to carry. No amount of marketing can make the brutal death-of-self attractive. But this is an absolute requirement for following Jesus. We offend God when we ignore this or try to present it in a way that does not offend people. What can we do to sell the concept of death-to-self to a self-centered society? Salesmanship is not the answer.

I hate to admit it, but we may be forced to fall back on such untimely methods as fervent prayer, honest confrontation, faithful witnessing and the power of the Holy Spirit to break the hearts of those people who will hear His voice and follow Christ.