[This post is part of a Book Club book series where we take a deep dive into Building A StoryBrand by Donald Miller. To check out all of the posts, view the table of contents here]
Can I have a moment of utter honesty here? Like, I’m going to step on people’s toes? I feel like the Church as a whole is being hurt by church marketing. It feels like a rat race to the top. I see so many blog titles to include “How To Get Your Church More Influence” or “Top 4 Ways To Get Your Social Media Posts Seen” or “The One Way To Get Your Newsletters Opened.”
It feels self-serving and silo driven where my church is pitted against your church with potential and current congregation members as the “number of sales.” Yuck.
This attitude then gets instilled into you and your staff. If you blog as “needing to be better than the rest,” you isolate, encourage seeing readers as numbers, and ultimately depersonalize your content. Churches, we do the same so often.
But our audience is not only not a number, but also someone who wants to see change. In fact, Donald Miller in this chapter says the single greatest motivator for an audience to engage with your organization is the desire to transform into a better version of themselves.
The fact of the matter is we not only need to understand what we are writing about, preaching, and sharing, but we need to understand our audience and how this will benefit them. As Christian organizations, this is also true. Even with the most divine of interventions, we have to understand what we are saying within the ears of our audience.
This also includes that fact that people do not want to come and sit for an hour at church just to leave. What do they get out of it? How do they transform within themselves? Donald stated it as companies that assist in identity transformation create passionate evangelists.
How are we serving them? How are they growing? What do we see for them when they are done reading this article or coming to that service? Not for the sake that we are trying to create self-absorbed congregation members or readers, but because they become ambassadors of the cause. Even more so, and this adds to what Donald wrote, I believe because we transform through God with the gifts He has given through His Spirit.
What About For ChurchMag?
I think Eric would agree with this, Church Tech right now has a lot of people that promote how to do good technical stuff and give results, but do not speak to the “what does it mean for our soul?”
The one question I ask when I write an article is “Do our readers become more whole because of this?” Not only tangibly with great downloads to use in ministry and devotionals to renew their spirit, but also the fun with creative and entertaining posts. Of all the chapters, I feel ChurchMag does this chapter the best.
How do you see people transformed by your church? If it has happened, share a story in the comments below.
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