We often highlight churches or ministries relying on creative marketing tactics to generate community buzz, garner media attention or attract new faces. Now leaders of entire denominations are looking to marketing to solve some ever-growing problems.
After seeing a 25 percent decline in an already aging membership, the United Methodist Church recently launched a $20 million marketing initiative to stop the bleeding—and promote a "24-7 experience" of church life. Over the next four years, the "Rethink Church" campaign will attempt to attract younger members by advertising various ways Methodist churches can play a part of everyday community life, from developing youth sports leagues to helping out with inner-city ministry.
"The under-35 generation thinks church is a judgmental, hypocritical, insular place," says Jamie Dunham, chief planning officer for the marketing firm that designed the United Methodist campaign. "So our question is: What if church can change the world with a journey?" For younger generations, that journey is all about learning how to daily apply personal faith in a community context, says pastor Larry Hollon, who also serves as chief communications executive for the United Methodist Church. "The megachurch folks learned that they have to address people where they are in their daily lives, and that's not in the sanctuary," Hollon says. "The Methodist Church is beginning to recall that that is who we are as well."
Other denominations are realizing this too—and responding in similar fashion. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America spent more than $1.2 million in the last two years on a branding campaign called "God's Work, Our Hands," which focuses on ways its churches can help empower a younger generation of potential members to "change the world" with everyday faith in action. Meanwhile, the Episcopal Church recently launched an online campaign with a Web site (iamepiscopalian.org) inviting believers to upload videos of their testimonies and explain their faith.
All three sects are part of a steady, decades-long trend among mainline Protestant churches that has seen congregational numbers dip almost 6 percent in the last 18 years. That—combined with the rise of nondenominational churches from fewer than 200,000 to 8 million—has church observers questioning whether denominations can have the same impact in today's à la carte spiritual climate.
"Mainline Protestantism can offer to people who are skeptical of tradition ... something more progressive," said Clemson University professor Laura Olson, who specializes in religion. "By and large, mainline Protestantism is progressive politically and theologically. They have really strong, powerful roots in social justice issues. That's their strongest card they have to play. It's got that going for it, but its worship style has always been pretty conventional. People who grew up in mainline Protestantism, who maybe aren't aware of the progressivism there, may be turned off by the worship style." [usnews.com, 6/3/09; AP, 6/2/09]
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