The significance of Marketing Church Services in modern Society
ABSTRACT
The controversy between theologians and Marketers with regards to the adoption of marketing by churches is still ragging. This study examines the various arguments, while identifying the marketable component of the church’s ‘offering’. A framework is also proposed for the adoption of marketing by churches.
CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
- BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The fact that marketing can be extended beyond regular business organisations was first proposed by Kotler and Levy (1969:11). In their words, “The choice … is not whether to market or not to market for no organisation can avoid marketing…the choice is whether to do it well or poorly”. This according to them is due to the fact that marketing is about “sensitively serving and satisfying human need” hence where there is a human need and the possibility of sensitivity in serving the need, marketing comes to play. This ground breaking paper led to the development of sub marketing disciplines like service marketing, non-profit marketing, religious marketing, church marketing, etc. However, probably no sub discipline of marketing has generated as much debate as church marketing has. Plethora of articles and books has been published on the dangers associated with the use of marketing by churches (examples include Dinning with the Devil, Selling (out) the Church in the Marketplace of Desire, Jesus is not a brand, etc) The objection of theologians has been on how do you combine the worldly or profane with that which is sacred or holy? In the words of Wells (1994:82) to use marketing in the church would mean that the church “be marketed as an organisation rather than an organism, as a place to meet people rather than as a place where one meets God, on terms that he establishes, as a commodity for consumption rather than an authority calling for pertinence and surrender”. Wrenn (1994) gave the six major criticisms of religious marketing as follows. That religious marketing is wasteful manipulative, opposes the spirit of leadership, stripes the sacred significance of religion, beneficial only if one has a lot of money to spend, and at odd with biblical views. On the issue of marketing churches, the Nigerian church leaders are of the view that the church administrators are not marketing churches enough; nevertheless, they note that marketing alone cannot grow the church. In addition, they observed that marketing strategies must be unique for a Church depending on its location and profile. They however caution that marketing design is important in addition to prayers (Bola, 2012). In other words, Nigerian church leaders believe that marketing has a role to play in the survival of a church. This paper therefore seeks to establish the theoretical foundation upon which the effective marketing of churches is built and the ‘how’ of church marketing
