It's so amazing how one moment, one thought, one encounter, one experience; one image, one conversation can totally reshape your entire way of thinking.

For those of you who don't know, I am a graphic designer, I am a commercialsartists that helps companies and organizations sell products or services to consumers by creating graphic art in the form if brochures, logos, web-sites, etc. I would like to think I am pretty good at it. I have no formal training, and have learned from mentors and by studying good design on my own.

I was speaking with a friend of mine whom works for a church in Alabama. She does the same thing as I do, except she works for a church. We got in a deep conversation about this and it really got me thinking deeper about some issues that have been stirring in my soul for a while now.

Before I get too far into this I feel like I should explain what marketing is; which will then help you understand what church marketing is. Marketing as a whole, as crude as it is, is any activity that gets you (the consumer) to do something. Marketing is a means, to ultimately an end of spurring a certain market to do something. It could be buying something, it could be watching a certain TV show, it could be believing something or going to a certain event.

Church marketing is really the same thing; it is when a church comes up with strategies for the market (the unchurched) to come to/buy into the beliefs and methods of a particular church.

So what does this look like? Good question. Church marketing, like any organizations marketing strategy begins with something called a "brand"; "Who we are and what we are all about" is summarized by a specific brand.

For instance when I say "Always Coke-a-Cola", you know excaclly what I am talking about. When hold up a picture of the logo for Apple, you know what that logo is, and certain images come to mind about the Apple products.

Companies pay millions and millions of dollars every year to "manage" or protect and build their brand. For instance Starbucks; you will never see a Starbucks commercial or any formal advertisement. But what you will see is George Clooney walking downtown Manhattan sipping a venti latte. Most likely this wasn't part of the original script. Starbucks paid a film company like Paramount millions of dollars to have their product placed in the movie. This is called product placement. This is ONE of the many ways Starbucks is innovative and strategic in marketing their coffee drinks.

So what all makes up an organizations brand? Simply "market perception". It is how the market perceives your product and your company as a whole that will determine your companies' success or failure. You could have a great product, but do really poor marketing and your company will fail, why? Because the market goes after what it perceives is the best. Your product doesn't have to be the best for people to buy it, it just has to be perceived as the best.

Back to church marketing. Churches (in the past 5 to 7 years) try to do the same thing, but obviously on a much, much smaller level. Even though they may not know they are "building a brand", they are. So what makes up a churches brand?

What do people think of your church? Is it the old, musty church filled with senior citizens? Is it the hip, trendy cool church that all the kids are into? What makes it hip and trendy? Who goes to you church? Where do people who don't go to you church, if they go to church, where do they go? And why? The people who go to your church, how did they find your church, why did they choose your church above the others. This has all has to do with the "four p's". Google it, I dare you.

All these questions are totally overwhelming and even being a marketing major, I have a tough time keeping track of all the questions, data and market analysis.

For the past several years I have been really into the church marketing scene. I even started my own marketing firm with the mission to help churches market them selves in a culturally relevant manner. That was my mission statement. But lately I have been asking the question, "Did I really help these churches become more culturally relevant", or did I encourage them and to spend a lot of money on a fancy web-site, signage, brochures, logos and lengthy and boring marketing plans complete with brand guidelines and style guides.

Why is any of it needed? Apple spends millions so that you buy a Mac over a PC, an iPod over a Zune; so that you will always be committed to Apple, no matter how much they charge or even if they switch to the Intel chip set. Starbucks spends millions of dollars to have George Clooney drink a latte so you pay 5-bucks for a coffee drink that costs a grand total of $0.32 cents to make. Why do they do it? Because their bottom line is riding on it.

I have been thinking that the reason churches market them selves isn't for a very different reason. Their bottom line is riding on it. The bigger a church grows the more land, stuff, buildings it buys. This all needs to be paid for. Churches are taking out multi-million dollar loans to pay for huge buildings, plasma screens on the walls and a million dollar AV system.

Why do we do it? Because we are trying to compete with a culture that will always be better, faster, and always one, two, three steps ahead of us. (The Church)

The church, in a sense is a midget. Companies like Apple and Ford are of normal height. Being a hip and trendy and culturally relevant church, is really in a sense like being the tallest midget. We may think we are tall, and we may be towering over the poor Lutheran church down the road, but in a since all we are doing is deceiving ourselves into thinking that we have made it, that were now cool, hip and trendy.

We're not. We're just a tall midget.

I watched American Idol tonight. They had a fund raiser to help bring some relief to the Aids crises in Africa. According to Fox, they raised over $30-million dollars in one night.

$30,000,000

That is amazing that guys like Simon and Bono are leading the fight against aids in Africa. But my question is: Where is the church in all of this?

Shouldn't the church be in the frontlines of bringing relief to the dying, the hurting and the poor? Shouldn't we, as THE CHURCH be the ones over there weeping over the mother dying of malaria (a disease that costs all of $5 to cure) and not Simon Cowell.

We spend so much money, energy and time trying to be culturally relevant and trying to market ourselves in a cool, hip and trendy way that we completely forget the ones that Jesus told us to feed, clothe, comfort and fight for.

Really the marketing answer for churches is really simple. It is totally free, and it is even outlined in the bible.

Love.

If we the church spent the time, money and energy loving people in the culture, as we do trying to market ourselves in the form of logos, web-sites, and brochures than our churches would be so big that we would never have to hire a guy like me to design a logo or web-site ever again.

Marketing has its place. Here me on this. Web-sites have their place. Logos have their place. But let 80% of our marketing strategy be love.

How did one man, start the biggest movement in history? He touched the untouchable, he healed the unhealable and he fought for the undesirable. Jesus understood that it wasn't about image, it was about connecting with the human soul. It wasn't about being cool; it was about doing what is right. That it's not about what other churches are doing, it's about doing what needs to be done.