In the podcast that debuted in spectacular fashion on Saturday I made the assertion that church marketing is by nature an anti-missional practice. Mission sends people out. Marketing seeks to bring people in. The two are at odds with one another. Makes sense, doesn’t it?
So, if you want to be a missional church, cut your marketing budget and use that money to send people out to minister in the community.
Next podcast to be posted Thursday.
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just to play the advocate, then when looking at out reach, which has a two fold purpose of reaching and bringing in, how does one carefully define the lines of marketing and outreach?!?!
Typical “outreach” events use some form of marketing to get people in. However, as Rusty (I think it was Rusty) and I have talked about before, most outreach events would really be better described as “in-pull” events. Often that’s what they are set up to do: pull people in.
True missional outreach again, doesn’t need marketing.
[...] things to check out, then let the comments roll! First have a read of this small post from Matt Cleaver, then listen to the podcast HERE. What do you think? In the podcast that debuted in spectacular [...]
I think noah was part of that conversation too. I remember him talking about someone who said pull carts on the golf course are not meant to be pushed. Just like we think our “outreach” should be to pull people in. Random question Matt, how was “Fidelity of Betrayal”?
nerdy, but, which is the path of least resistance? is pulling easier or pushing
That last comment of mine was terrible…i don’t think i’m awake yet and it’s 11:30am…
hahahahha i was wondering what was up. so when you going to join us in the podcast brother
@Rusty: I tried to clean up your comment. I’m not even sure what you were trying to say though, lol. So, let me know if I got it right. Fidelity of Betrayal was great. It’s been a while since I’ve read it, so I’ve forgotten a lot, but in typical Pete Rollins fashion, it twists the brain and stretches your faith. It’s worth a read.
@Brit, the question is not which is easier (which we usually define as what “works”), but which is faithful.
oh faithful smaishful
jesus always did what was easiest man…always… it’s biblical…
ps and that guys link to missiology is just overwhelming…i’m sick now from checking out so many links
Here’s how it should read…
I think noah was part of that conversation too. I remember him talking about someone who said pull carts on the golf course are meant to be pushed. Yea, makes zero sense. Just like we think our “outreach” should be to pull people in. Makes as much sense as pushing a pull cart.
And Brit, we definitely can’t go for just what is easiest. So, to Matt’s point, it is more faithful to pull a pull cart than push it.
So, if you want to push your golf bag around, then call your cart a push cart, not a pull cart. If you want to attrach people to your church, call it drag-in, not outreach.
Hope this makes more sense.
for starters i don’t play golf, not because i’m confused on pushing or pulling, because i don’t playing golf…
and i think outreach needs to be defined. i know for our church its by no means to ‘drag’ people back in… but simply help our community and different ministries outside of our church.
i think that reaching out to the community is something a church does…a ‘product’from that is potential growth of community members coming into the church????
You keep talking about coming into a church… that is 4-wall mentality which is a paradigm that is difficult to break. My experience has been congregations trying to find a way to bring the community to a ‘professionally’ orchestrated event (worship service) in hopes that the Holy Spirit will ‘move’ and cause the person to ‘find’ Jesus so that they can become part of the congregation that is now self-producing by inviting more people to witness the ‘professional event’. Statistics play out that more people are brought into the kingdom through small group interaction. Intentional Missiology should look to be what you are in the place that you find yourself… and that is church. Where ever I find myself, I am part of the church – the ekklesia. Christ command to GO was not instruction to leave a building but to be about. Outreach – Inreach would have been such foreign ideas to the early church that they would have had to call on Paul to write us a letter.
hey tony,
i’m slightly confused, are you agreeing or disagreeing with us. i guess first that we (rusty, matt and I) need to explain when we use the word church.
when we say church, unlike other brothers and sisters, we are not referring to any building but the community in which a congregation fellowships. we all teach and preach ekklesia and practice it as well with our ministries the best we can.
completely agree with your comment on Missiology. and again with your last statement about Go…i agree as well matt would (sorry to answer for you) that correct he didn’t call us to walk outside of a building…
so i guess…umm amen brother i agree with you in your statements… but reminder that semantics play role in our world of theological words these days
I think Tony is responding to Brit’s thoughts in the comments section, not necessarily the podcast. Am I right, Tony?
Thanks for stopping by. And, we agree.
matt…you coward
lets fight….
Hey now, no need to pick a fight where none is due. And, this is like the longest comment thread ever.
Sorry guys…sometimes I get scatter-brained because I am trying to do more than one thing at a time.
Yes, I was agreeing with you guys that church should never be considered the building.
I enjoyed listening to your interactions on the podcasts… It will be interesting to see where you guys are going to go with this discussion.
Hey Tony, don’t get your hopes up! Brit called me last Friday morning and said “Hey, we should do that podcast thing we’ve been thinking about today.”
And I said, “Okay.”
We’ll be refining things for the future, hopefully. We’re glad you enjoyed listening.
i hate hate hate the fact that you are so flipping negative matt… your negative sarcasm…:-p i dream… and you crush.
tony thank you very much man. we hope you will stay with us as we flesh out how we understand the mandate and call of love that Christ calls all of us to. would love to have insight on some postings you would like to hear about, and possibly even join us in the new year with your own thoughts on topics
matt sorry for calling you coward…that was really strong and i know you knew i meant that in jest…but after i hit speak! i was like uhhh!!! thats a little strong for horse playing…so sorry bud
Apology accepted. But I can take it.
Hi there, I found your blog via Google while searching for sites about golf and your post looks very interesting for me.