Are you getting the support you need from your denomination?

I ask this of both pastors and lay leaders. Your needs differ! 

I ask this also of professional leadership at the regional and church-wide denominational levels, with yet different needs.

The question is important now.

Denominations have serious competition—a situation of their own making. They largely ignored the technology revolution for three decades. Today’s power is held by those who have mastered tech. It may be too late to catch up.

Levels of Competition

There are three emerging forms of competition:

• A rising number of pastors without calls are entering the gig market. They offer weddings, funerals, baptisms, and counseling  tailored to the wants of the participants more than to denominational practices. 
• Individual pastors are putting up websites to attract coaching gigs. Some are mavericks. Others seem to be genuinely interested in helping colleagues even if they are bypassing usual denominational protocols.
• Commercial enterprises (perhaps with non-profit status) address vital needs that are poorly addressed within denominations. Examples include ChurchFuel and PushPay. These services focus on improving giving. They are likely to help big churches get bigger. 

Church tech needs are a growing market niche. A recent Kickstart campaign seeks funding to develop tech for church social media, offering incentives to contributing churches.  

Congregations now realize they need technology to reach generations that have always lived in a tech-driven world. Pastors without tech skills need to hire tech skills. I’m glad they have options. 

I’m in no position to condemn these enterprises. Small Church Toolbox serves similar challenging needs. 

Cause for Concern

More concerning for leaders of regional bodies are individual churches, probably of the evangelical label, banding together to help other churches crossing denominational lines. 

These efforts seem to be headed by well-intentioned young pastors who have studied marketing in addition to seminary studies. They are comfortable on camera and know how to build a tech team to support their work. Using the internet, they can help anyone, anywhere.

Frankly, they are doing a good job!

• They communicate with hope and affirmation and provide realistic strategies. 
• They provide clear and helpful online trainings.
• They provide coaches to walk beside small churches without the prohibitive expense of certified church consultants. 

Their testimonials indicate they are reaching frustrated, burned-out pastors—pastors who don’t want a list of failed churches on their résumés. 

Do they work for the churches or the pastors? It is unclear and this could be a problem in some church structures. Solving church problems requires both lay and clergy input.

They’ve figured out that churches with fewer than 200 members — 90% of all churches — cannot afford the church model expected by regional bodies. They’ve found a way to help churches facing the direst circumstances, while regional strategies often prepare churches for closure.

Closed churches provide a short-lived windfall to struggling regional bodies. They also eliminate potential for future ministries in well-populated neighborhoods that are vital to the spread of the Christian message and for the delivery of services close to areas with greatest needs. Failure to adopt technology is resulting in regional bodies losing ground where their members once sacrificed to provide important assets for ministry.

Bypassing denominational traditions

With these realities in mind, it was both refreshing and worrisome to recently attend a several-day online conference hosted by Church Marketing University (CMU).

The leaders of CMU are a few pastors with no stated denominational affiliation. The pastors represented churches in several states. I recall mentions of Virginia, Missouri, Alabama, and Michigan among the presenters.

The key host talked about his dual post-grad degrees in Bible studies and marketing. I recognized his marketing strategies from my secular communications work.

CMU’s monthly fee—$267. That seven on the end is a marketing strategy based on behavioral research. Evangelism often remains unfunded in deference to worship and property costs. This price is prohibitive to small churches with or without the seven. 

However, CMU offers a generous “scholarship”—$27 per month. (There’s that seven at the end again!) They use the scarcity marketing strategies to attract churches—Hurry! Only a few spots left! This is affordable to an individual pastor—which means pastors have an alternative source of help.

Regional bodies adopted corporate practices long ago. The growth of the big box suburban churches and the teaming with government funding services for social outreach are two results. Neighborhood churches suffered when efficiency and cost-effectiveness became ministry priorities. They became expendable. 

I like a lot of what I heard and saw in the CMU offerings. I worry about some strategies borrowed from the corporate world. Marketing and evangelism are close cousins; they are not the same.

CMU teaches the practice of defining an avatar. Marketing 101. This means they shape all ministry decisions around a desired demographic—the demographic that can help them achieve their goal—which easily can become finding financial support. The temptation is to create an avatar that helps you look for people that provide what we need—rather than helping meet the needs of others.

The CMU host named his church’s avatars—families and men. He elaborated—We want all our marketing materials to communicate that this is a place where men can feel comfortable. He uses models in publicity.

What church doesn’t want families? They fill programs and promise a future! 

I emailed this pastor a question: What does targeting men say to the women who are presumably part of the family avatar? No response. I’ll report what I heard: “Just what we need—another place for men to feel comfortable.”

In short, tech-capable churches can target the juiciest apples on the tree!

Church marketers must exercise caution. Marketing’s goal is profit. Evangelism’s goal teaches selfless love.

A biblical church avatar would include the poor, immigrants, imprisoned, minorities, disenfranchised, elderly, children, sick, addicted, handicapped and homeless—men, women, and children. 

Nevertheless, CMU provides small churches with help they aren’t finding elsewhere. 

For regional bodies, it may be the beginning of the end of their influence within their own flock.

Posted written by Judith Gotwald, Small Church Toolbox