Marketing Blunders..in the Church??!!

This is one of those rubber-meets-the-road posts. Figured I'd better warn you now, because not everyone is going to like some of the information I'm about to share.

I'm discovering some..gasp..MARKETING BLUNDERS..IN THE CHURCH.

For example, one of the church websites that I visited this week had information that was way out of date..(Please RSVP by October 4, 2005) and very little information that compelled me to read the entire website. It also did not list the worship service times. Basically, I found it to be quite boring and lifeless. The church is wonderful, but this certainly doesn't come through on the website.

Of course, some websites offer lots of information and are very professional in appearance. But, when a church or ministry has a full website with its own domain name and hosting, it looks rather..well..cheap..to have a site that looks amateurish.

"Welcome to our website" is a rather overused lead-in to some church sites. I'd prefer to see some kind of unique aspect about your church or ministry early on.

I'm also kind of put off by the forms that say, "Please check the areas that you would like to serve" and then list things such as choir, children, youth, food..

The response rate to these is declining. Want to know the real reason why? Today's busy-as-a-bee, frenzied, overworked, underpaid, chauffeaur-my-kids (and etc) families don't need, or want, another unpaid "job" with bosses and more rules to follow.

I overheard someone say, after a rather heated business meeting, "If I wanted more problems to deal with, I could have just stayed at the office later tonight." They left the church..for good.

In my case, I feel like a trapezoid. There's no description for media/web writer or anything to that effect. I don't sing, do the children/youth thing anymore and the food folks are entrenched, so they didn't need me. So I'm much less involved than I used to be. I might jump at the right chance..but no one seems that interested in talking to me about it.

One final thing is in the attitude that some people are treated. One Sunday in particular, we were taking one of the grandsons to his Sunday School class, only to discover all the class locations had been changed. We ended up in the wrong room.

The lady in charge said, "Excuse me, we're having church here."

MAJOR BLUNDER!!!!!

If I had been driving, I would have taken the grandson and left..maybe for good. The tone just totally said to me "You are intruding on MY space so get out of here now."

Is that REALLY the message that you want to send out from your church to anyone, be it a member or a guest? I sincerely hope not.

I believe that there needs to be a better job of connecting with the members. I will say, that generally, if someone asks, "How are you?" my pat answer is "fine," even if:

*I'm on the verge of tears due to family circumstances
*Everything has gone wrong all week
*We don't know if there'll be enough money to keep the electricity on

..and on and on. Smile on the outside, rain on the inside. And things are "fine."

Florida, in particular, is losing church members in droves. Maybe it is time that the church, in general, stepped back and took a look at the "image" that the general public sees. Does it compel folks to come in and seek shelter? Or tell them their chances for any acceptance are better on the streets?

Folks, we CAN do better.