Christ Teachings

The ultimate reason why our young people do not remain in our churches, why they leave these churches, to as high a rate as 70%, is because their needs are not met. And the deepest and most enduring of these needs is their need for Christ. The churches are not giving Christ to these young people, and to the old as well. Their need for genuine spiritual development is not met.

This article describes the ways in which our churches do not give Christ to our young people.

The first way is through the preaching of the churches. Our preaching generally, either in Catholic or non-Catholic churches, do not give Christ to our young people. According to A. W. Tozer we do not have to do research to prove that this is so. You just enter any church today during a Sunday or Saturday and listen to the sermons by the priest or pastor. And you can easily notice that what the priest or pastor is preaching is not Christ, but what he or she thinks of Christ or of a Bible passage and how this applies to one’s life. This kind of preaching does not satisfy the need of the listeners to spiritual development but it satisfies the need of the priest or preacher to say something to the people so that the church organization can go on with its activities.

The second way is through the teaching of the churches. In Catholic churches we have catechism classes and bible study classes for this. In Protestant churches we have the Sunday or Sabbath school and the bible study groups. What is the emphasis in these classes? It is memorization of certain formulas or bible verses and understanding these formulas or verses. Nowhere is Christ given to the young people. The teachers of course boast that they convey the teaching of Christ in their classes. But our young people are not so much interested in teachings, even those of Christ, whether these are in formulas or in scripture verses or famous quotations of great men and women of God. They are interested in meeting the person of Christ, in having a genuine, growing, loving relationship with him. And the churches do not give this kind of real Christ to them. So their spiritual development is not progressing as it should.

The third way that the churches do not give Christ to the young people, as well as to the old, is through the relationship of the members among themselves. Christ is not the motive of their relationship among themselves. They may be led to have games and to have fellowship around games, whether indoor or outdoors. Camps are conducted almost yearly, but you can easily notice that during camps there are small groups milling around certain issues. This group is good in mission to the prisoners. This other group congregates around the issue of mission to the elementary pupils. Christ is the not the issue that unites all the activities. He is mentioned in prayer last, “we pray in the name of Christ”, perhaps because he is last in our thoughts and desires. In many instances he is the savior of last recourse, after we have done everything at our disposal and failed. Then we turn to him.

We now use logic to make our point clear. If Christ, the real Christ and not our idea about Christ, were the one given to our young people and our old people, they would have been real Christians by now and we would not be in such a mess, combatants of two world wars and preparing for a third one. What you sow is what you harvest. If you plant rice, you will harvest rice, never corn or barley. If we plant Christ, the real Christ, in the hearts of our young people and old people, we would harvest Christ, the real Christ: the one who is genuinely interested in our spiritual development.

About the Author:
Jose Bulao, a lay Carmelite, wants to help you in your spiritual development. He taught Religions of the World for 10 years at Notre Dame University, Cotabato City, Philippines. To learn about the process of your spiritual development click this site http://developspirit.blogspot.com/

Twitter is growing in popularity right along with Facebook. So, why should the church care? Here

We’ve talked about what a podcast is and some reasons why podcasting is relevant for churches, but what exactly should your church do for a podcast. There isn’t one specific answer. Every church has its own identity, its own strengths and weaknesses, and its own budget. So, you will have to decide what kind(s) of podcasting is best for your church, but here are a few ideas to get you going.

1. Sermon Podcasts:

This is probably the bare minimum any church should do if they are going to do any podcasting. A sermon podcast is simply using your weekly sermon as the podcast. One of the great things about the sermon podcast is that it requires NO ADDITIONAL PREP TIME. You’re already going to have a sermon, so why not record it. A lot of churches already record their sermons, so why not podcast it. If your church already records your sermons, then podcasting the sermons will probably only take an additional 5-10 minutes.

2. Recorded Bible Study Or Other Class Podcast:

This is along the same lines as the sermon podcast in that you would simply record something that you are doing already and turn it into a podcast, however, this may require a little more work. Most churches don’t record their Bible studies (or other classes) already, so you would have to figure out the best way to record. You also want to be sure to discuss the idea with all those involved in the class especially if their questions/

Kurt Steinbrueck is the author of the Church Marketing Online blog. He has been providing Christian search engine optimization services including church marketing solutions and private school marketing. Find this article at http://churchmarketingonline.com.

With the rapid increase in the popularity of Twitter, it seems everyone and their uncle are creating Twitter tools and Twitter related websites. Some of these tools and websites are very helpful and can be great resources, while others leave much to be desired. So what tools should you use? What sites are good resources?

Buzzable:

Buzzable allows you to create public or private groups either centered around a specific topic. The groups gather content from a various feeds, such as Twitter, blogs, Google News, Digg, and others. You can setup specific sources for the group and/or you can set up feeds by keyword. The idea is that members of the groups can then discuss the topics of the various feeds.

Buzzable, while an interesting idea, may not be something your church (or anyone) would benefit from as a marketing tool. I think it depends what you want to use it for. If you have a group of people within your church that would like to get info about a topic and discuss it online, then you could setup a Buzzable group for them, but, at least right now, I think that

It’s no secret that the majority of people in this country are no longer attending church. Even many who would consider themselves “born again” believers seem to be disenchanted by the notion of being committed to any local congregation in a significant way. Despite some of the more positive statistics concerning American church growth, since the 1960s there’s been a marked decrease in involvement in the local church as a whole. Not long ago, in the city where we were living, five churches from a particular denomination closed their doors in order to combine their ministries into a single congregation because they could no longer support themselves individually. Although local church leaders put a great deal of effort into putting a positive spin on the consolidation, the unpopular truth was painfully obvious, these churches were in decline.

Granted the cause of shrinking church attendance in the U.S. is as complex and varied as the people involved, or not involved as the case may be. But if we’re one of those individuals who currently falls in the Christian-non-church-goer category, perhaps it’s time to ask ourselves “why”? For many, the answer may be less insidious than we first thought.

Are you familiar with the social phenomenon that has come to be known as “cocooning”? Since the advent of TV and now the internet, the overwhelming trend in our nation is for people to become less and less socially interactive and thus more and more relationally isolated. Not so long ago, the idea of having little or no interaction with our closest neighbors was unthinkable. I once head an older southern gentleman remark that air conditioning was responsible for the downfall of his community.

He went on to explain that in Arkansas, everyone would go out on their front porch in the evening to escape the heat. To avoid being labeled as rude they would be forced to participate in at least some level of conversation with their neighbors. Though usually the dialogue was superficial, there was certainly an expectation of frequent verbal interaction. Now, because of the transient nature of most neighborhoods, a noticeable indifference toward those who live near us has become not only acceptable, but in most cases, the unspoken norm. Geography is no longer the primary motivation for interaction or relationship. Facebook alone has the potential of influencing the way many of us view life in a community. However, it is my contention that, just as watching a movie is seldom as impacting or meaningful as reading a book; cyber-relationships will never be an adequate substitute for physical, face to face interaction.

If you’re a Christian, and you’re not currently involved in any life giving relationships with other believers, consider this. You were created to function as a part of something much bigger than yourself. Our spiritual journey was not meant to be traveled alone. Put simply, we were made to need one another. Maybe it’s time to reconsider finding a local church. Not so that we can be considered a church-goer, but in hopes of developing a meaningful relationship or two with someone who is spiritually headed in the right direction.

Be assured, there are no perfect churches. If there’s people there, count on it being prone to weakness and imperfection. The only answer to church problems is the discipline of forgiveness and the willingness to maintain a graceful demeanor toward all others. The local church is still the best hope for a lost and dying world. Don’t give up on finding a good one, they’re out there!

We’ve talked about what a podcast is and some reasons why podcasting is relevant for churches, but what exactly should your church do for a podcast. There isn’t one specific answer. Every church has its own identity, its own strengths and weaknesses, and its own budget. So, you will have to decide what kind(s) of podcasting is best for your church, but here are a few ideas to get you going.

1. Sermon Podcasts:

This is probably the bare minimum any church should do if they are going to do any podcasting. A sermon podcast is simply using your weekly sermon as the podcast. One of the great things about the sermon podcast is that it requires NO ADDITIONAL PREP TIME. You’re already going to have a sermon, so why not record it. A lot of churches already record their sermons, so why not podcast it. If your church already records your sermons, then podcasting the sermons will probably only take an additional 5-10 minutes.

2. Recorded Bible Study Or Other Class Podcast:

This is along the same lines as the sermon podcast in that you would simply record something that you are doing already and turn it into a podcast, however, this may require a little more work. Most churches don’t record their Bible studies (or other classes) already, so you would have to figure out the best way to record. You also want to be sure to discuss the idea with all those involved in the class especially if their questions/

Kurt Steinbrueck is the author of the Church Marketing Online blog. He has been providing Christian search engine optimization services including church marketing solutions and private school marketing. Find this article at http://churchmarketingonline.com.

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Facebook has become the most popular social networking website on the Internet. Millions of people have a profile and most people have lots of friends. Their friends may range from family members, to people they work with, to friends from college or high school. Most of your church

In the last article, I wrote about how Facebook provides a great opportunity for the church to market itself through their members

Relevant Church in Tampa, FL is creative church leading the way when it comes to online church marketing. I recently had the opportunity to chat with Pastor Paul Wirth, senior pastor of Relevant Church in Tampa, FL about their online marketing strategy.

In part one of this part three part series, Pastor Wirth talked about how Relevant Church uses creative marketing ideas to cause a buzz and increase the effectiveness of the marketing. Then, in part two he discussed using multiple layers of marketing to greatly increase the effectiveness of the marketing effort. In the third part of my interview with Pastor Wirth, he talked about creativity in marketing, how it can be used, and what that means to different churches.

Part 3 – Being Creative in Your Church Marketing

Kurt: Let’s talk about some of the church marketing ideas you have used, not so much the forms of search engine marketing like SEO or Adwords, but the messages you’ve used. I know you did the 30 Day Sex Challenge.

Pastor Wirth: With our 30 Sex Challenge. Obviously, that had some buzz because it’s sex and the church is telling people to have sex for 30 days. That had some buzz to it.

And we had over a million hits to our website during that 30 Sex Challenge thing. So, that was a huge deal for us. It created a huge buzz, but all of our billboards, all of our signs, all only said 30DaySexChallenge.com. That’s it. And that drills into a website which gave them more information about our church and what the series is about and everything.

Kurt: Giving people enough information to get their attention and get them to act, but leaving them wanting more information.

Pastor Wirth: It’s a hook And some people say, “Well isn’t that bait and switch?” and I’m like, “No, it’s not bait and switch. It’s just a hook.” If people go to the site and it’s not what their looking for, they click off of the site. It’s that simple. But if we can get people to stay on the site and peruse it, they may think, “Wow! If I was going to go to church, I would definitely want to go to this church.” Hopefully, that will spark someone’s interest.

Kurt: I know I’ve seen a lot of other creative church marketing strategies. Some that come to mind are the My Lame Sex Life campaign, I saw a billboard the other day that said “Boycott such-n-such church. – Signed Satan”, and you had the 30 Day Sex Challenge. How have you found that those are effective? Do you find that those kind of “creative” marketing campaigns are more effective than the more traditional marketing ideas that churches use.

Pastor Wirth: Well, you tell me. We got over one million hits in thirty days during the 30 Day Sex Challenge. Ask any other church if by just putting my picture up on a billboard going “Come and listen to Pastor Paul Wirth on Sunday morning.” They would get that kind of response. Here’s the deal, unless you are looking for a church, why in the world would you even look at that billboard (of Pastor Wirth’s face) or website. It just doesn’t make any sense. Anyone who does a billboard, whether you promoting Mountain Dew, Google, or liposuction will tell you you’re trying to get someone’s attention. So, I think it’s foolish for the church not to try to get people’s attention when we really have the greatest message of all time to give to people. And for us to think that we are going to get their attention by the same means we did 50 years ago is foolish. I think, yes, for us it works much better.

I don’t think every church can do it. You have to make sure it fits the demographic and the people that you are trying to reach. If someone is trying to reach 60 year olds, I don’t know that putting up a flashy billboard for the 30 Day Sex Challenge would be beneficial for them. That’s not going to market to their people. You know what they should do? If they are marketing to 60 year olds, they should figure out what do 60 year olds like to do and they should market to that. If that’s giving free coffee away for all the walkers in the mall that walk every single morning at the mall. Well, that’s 60 year olds. So, why not go market to them and do something that’s going to be beneficial to that age group and that demographic. I think that’s where the creativity comes into it. How do you market to your demographic? Well, you have to know you’re demographic and know what their needs are and then shoot it that way.

Kurt: So, you don’t think the marketing message has to be crazy or outlandish, it just needs to fit the demographic that you are trying to reach.

Pastor Wirth: Absolutely. That’s the thing. You’ve got to know your demographic and then market to them. Outlandish works for us because of who we’re trying to reach. Outlandish wouldn’t work in St. Petersburg for 60 year olds because it wouldn’t reach them. Just be creative in your own environment.

I don’t try to knock people who do things more traditionally in their creativity because they are trying to reach a more traditional market. But, on the flip side of that, getting real negative feedback from lots of other churches because we are being creative in marketing to our demographic seems to be foolish as well. You know we had more negative feedback from religious people than we did from mainstream media, just because they didn’t understand what we were trying to do and didn’t think that we should try to do it even if they would understand it. They say, “That’s still wrong.” Well, ok, that’s your opinion, but we’re seeing people trust Christ and that’s what it’s about. It’s about reaching people for eternity.

Kurt: Staying on that point. You mentioned that you got over a million hits on your website during the 30 Day Sex Challenge. Have you seen that with all the attention that you got is it just attention or does it translate into reaching people for Christ”

Pastor Wirth: Well, we’ve grown by 20% through that challenge. That’s not exponential growth, but it’s manageable, sustainable growth and about 3 times what the average church is growing in America today. And during the 30 Day Sex Challenge we saw 13 people trust Christ. I’m talking about sex and their getting saved. They are beginning their relationship with Jesus Christ. So, those are the things that we look at more. Some people ask, “Man, did you double or triple is size?” And I respond, “No, we just have manageable, sustainable growth, which that is good and we consider that successful.

Kurt: As we finish up the interview, are there any lessons that you’ve learned or tips that you have that you’ve learned through either your online or offline marketing that you could share with our readers?

Pastor Wirth: I think the main thing in any kind of marketing is “know your target.” If you don’t know your target, if you don’t know who you’re trying to reach…and quite frankly I think too many times people in church work try to shoot with a shotgun and say “We’re here to reach everyone.” Well, you can’t reach everyone because you are probably going to reach people who are most like you. So, find out who you are. Find out what you do well and do that and then market to those kinds of people who would fall into that same category. Secondarily, spend some money in actually marketing. I still consider myself a church planter. I hear too many church planters say, “Well, if I had the money that you had, I could market too.” Well, we spend a thousand dollars on a billboard and we spend a hundred dollars a month on some other stuff. We’re not spending a ton of money on marketing; we’re just trying to maximize the marketing we’re doing. So, call around, but do something. Doing nothing is not optional. If we’re trying to reach people for the Kingdom, doing nothing is not optional. We have to do something.

Kurt: Well, I think that’s it. Thank you taking the time to talk with me.

Pastor Wirth: No problem, any time.

I want to thank Pastor Wirth again for taking the time to share with me and our readers. If you would like to learn more about Relevant Church or visit them, please visit their website at: http://www.relevantchurch.com

Kurt Steinbrueck is the author of the Church Marketing Online blog. He has been providing Christian search engine optimization services for church marketing solutions. You can find the original version of this article at http://churchmarketingonline.com/2008/10/creativity-is-the-key-to-successful-church-marketing/.

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In our continuing our discussion of church marketing within Social Media, we’ve started looking at social networking websites, specifically Facebook. If you haven’t already created a profile on Facebook, either for yourself or your church, now is a good a time as any. It’s quick and it’s easy, but be warned…it’s also addictive.

So How Easy Is It?
You can setup a profile in Facebook for yourself in a matter of minutes. There are about 5 or 6 steps to the setup process and Facebook will walk you through not only setting up your profile, but also starting to find friends right away. Setting up a Facebook Page for your church is just as easy, maybe even easier. So, if you haven’t setup a profile for yourself or setup page for your church, do it now.

Setting Up a Personal Profile:
If you want to setup a Facebook profile for yourself, follow these simple steps:
• Go to http://www.facebook.com/
• The signup is on the Facebook homepage. Enter your name, email, password, gender, and birthdate. (All this info is required. If you feel uncomfortable having this info in your profile, you will be able to set your profile’s privacy settings later and can have information hidden.
• Once you’ve created an account, you’ll start to find friends immediately.
• One of the especially helpful features of Facebook is that it is able to interface with most email providers and retrieve your contacts list from your email account. So, if you have a Hotmail or Gmail account, you can import your contacts list and add them as “friends”.
• Next you will be asked for your high school and graduation date. This helps you easily connect with former high school classmates.
• As you have started adding “friends” to your profile, Facebook will show you some of your friend’s friends. You may find additional friends from your friend’s friends that you can add as your friends.
• Lastly you’ll be asked for the city you live in to further help you network with people in your area. (Again, you can decide how much information is available and to whom that info is available in the privacy settings of your Facebook profile.
• Once you have setup your profile, I’d encourage you to Edit Your Profile and add additional information, especially a picture. Their may be a thousand people with your name in Facebook. A picture will help your friends identify you.
• If you are concerned about how much of your information is available, edit your privacy settings to the level of privacy you prefer.

That’s it. Once you have your Facebook profile setup you can find more friends, write posts on people’s “Wall”, send emails, post pictures, and keep your family and friends updated on what’s going on in your life.

Setting Up A Facebook Page For Your Church:
• Go to: http://www.facebook.com/business/?pages
• Click the “Create a Facebook Page” button
• Select “Local” and choose “Religious Center”. You can also select “Brand or Product” and then choose “Religious Organization. (Be sure to select the correct category as it is very difficult to change that later)
• Enter name of your org.
• Enter you email and create a Facebook account. If you want, you can use your existing Facebook account
• Update your Page’s image and info.
• Click “Publish”. (If you don’t click “publish” people won’t be able to see the page. So, if you want to work on the page a little before you go live, you can do that.)

Who that was hard. Now that you have your church’s Facebook Page setup, you an add news, post pictures, distribute your blog through the page, and more.

In the coming articles we’ll talk more about how you can use your Facebook profile and your church’s Facebook Page for church marketing. In the mean time, spend a little time in Facebook, find your old college roommate, see what your high school friends are doing, and have some fun…just don’t forget to sleep.

Kurt Steinbrueck is the author of the Church Marketing Online blog. He has been providing Christian search engine optimization services for church marketing solutions and private school marketing. You can find the original version of this article at http://churchmarketingonline.com.

In my last article I talked about creating a Facebook Page for your church. Facebook Pages are good, but there are some features in the Facebook Profiles which are not available in Facebook Pages. Unfortunately, these deficiencies have seriously weakened the effectiveness of Facebook Pages for churches. So, for your Facebook church marketing strategy, I recommend considering creating both.

Why Do I Want Both?
Simply put, Facebook Pages has some features that would be beneficial to your social church marketing and keeping your church members informed and a personal Facebook Profile has some other features which are also beneficial. The other way of putting it is that neither Facebook Pages nor Facebook Profiles are quite up to the task on their own.

Your Facebook Profile:
One of the great features of Facebook is the news stories that are created within your profile. When you add someone as a friend, every time they do something in their profile, like add pictures or post a comment, a news story is created in your profile. Similarly, whenever you do something in your profile a news story is created in your friends

If you are a person (and most of us are) you can create a Facebook profile to reconnect with old friends, stay in touch with family and friends and meet new people online. Churches, on the other hand, cannot create a profile as profiles are restricted to individuals. Churches have to create a Facebook Page which works a little differently than a profile.

Your Church’s Facebook Page:
The Facebook Page for your church is a good way to get your church into the social networking scene. With Facebook being so popular, having your church where people are and having your church involved where your members and others are involved is a great way to connect with people.

The Facebook Page allows your church, as an organization, to have an official presence in Facebook, which is great for church marketing.

• The first step is to add a good profile picture. Many churches use a photo of their church building. That’s fine, but I’d encourage you to use pictures of people. People connect better with people than with buildings and after all, the church is the people, not the building.
• Next add the church’s contact information and some descriptive information about the church. If you have a church website, be sure to include the web address for the official church website.
• From there you can add whatever information/content you want. You can list events, publish photos and pictures, create discussion topics, and add notes.

Update, Update, Update:
Even more than with your church website, it is important to update your church’s Facebook Page. Most people on Facebook check Facebook a lot. Having new content on your church’s Facebook Page gives people a reason to check the page whenever they are on Facebook and that keeps them connected.

Updating the page doesn’t mean that you have to constantly be adding event or photos, it can simply be putting a message on the wall, perhaps a Bible verse or short “message of the day”. Also, unlike your church website, the adding of new content to the Facebook Page can be done by every member of your congregation. Encourage your congregation to write messages on the wall, post their own pictures and videos, and participate in discussions. The more interaction from your members, the better.

Be Personal:
Having your members posting on the church’s Facebook Page is not only helpful because it adds new content, but also because it makes the church more personal. Facebook is all about people connecting with people. Most of the communication that goes on in Facebook is about the little, personal things in people’s lives. People on Facebook are looking for that kind of personal information and interaction. By allowing the personal side of your church to come out on your Facebook Page, it makes the church more attractive to people, especially unchurched people who think the church is all about rules and religious practices.

Sending Updates
You can also use your church’s Facebook Page to communicate with fans (members of the church) that aren’t currently on the church’s Facebook Page using the Send an Update feature. This feature sends a message to the fan’s Facebook Profile. Sending updates can help send information to church members and also bring them back to the church’s Facebook Page. You can also use the Facebook Page to distribute blog articles, but I’ll discuss that in a future article.

Publicize Events
One other neat feature of the Facebook Page (and profiles) is that events can be made public. One of the options you will have when you setup an event in your church’s Facebook Page is to “Publicize” the event. By publicizing the event, it adds the event into the Facebook event database. People who are not fans (and fans too) who search through Facebook events will be able to find your church’s events. This is especially useful for events like concerts.

So, go ahead and get started. Create a new “Face” for your church. People are social. The church should be too.

Kurt Steinbrueck is the author of the Church Marketing Online blog. He has been providing Christian search engine optimization services for church marketing solutions and private school marketing. You can find the original article at http://churchmarketingonline.com.

Over the past several weeks we’ve been looking at church marketing in social media. We’ve looked at using video sharing sites, like YouTube and GodTube, and now I’d like look at using social networking sites, specifically Facebook, currently the number one social networking website and third most popular social media site behind YouTube and Wikipedia. When looking for places to market your church, Facebook has a pretty big audience.

So what is Facebook?
Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family, and coworkers. The site provides a variety of features to facilitate communication between people as well as between organizations and people. Some of these features are news postings, chat, article distribution, photo sharing, and video sharing. With Facebook’s design, you can share information, pictures and videos quickly just by posting the info or media to your profile. That information or media can then be shared with all your “friends” or “fans” automatically.

The History:
Originally Facebook started out as an online college “facebook” at Harvard University created by then sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg, in 2004. More than half the students at Harvard had joined up within the first month. Considering that response, Facebook was opened up to all the Ivy League schools and then to pretty much every college and university in the US and Canada within a few months. In 2005 Facebook expanded to include high schools and finally in 2006 Facebook was opened for anyone over the age of 13.

Other than the fact that I find this history interesting, I wanted to share the history of Facebook to demonstrate the explosive growth and prominence of social media to demonstrate its value to church marketing.

Who’s Using Facebook?
In its first 2 years, Facebook grew from half the student population of Harvard, to a majority of all college students in the US and Canada. Since then, according to Facebook’s statistics page, Facebook has grown to more than 130 million active users. It is the 4th most trafficked website in the world, and it is the most trafficked social networking site in the world.

Here are some other interesting facts about Facebook:
• More than half the Facebook users are outside of college
• Over 85% of college students use Facebook
• The fasted growing demographic are people 25 years and older
• Facebook is also international with 35 translations currently available

So, who is using Facebook, a lot of people, probably a lot of your own congregation, and certainly a lot of people who you would like to bring into your congregation. In short just about everyone.

Facebook can be a great means of communicating with your congregation. It can also be a great way market your church and help your church members tell others about Christ and your church.

Over the next couple of articles, we’ll be looking at various ways to use Facebook for church marketing as well as church communication.

Kurt Steinbrueck is the author of the Church Marketing Online blog. He has been providing Christian search engine optimization services for church marketing solutions and private school marketing. You can find the original version of this article at http://churchmarketingonline.com.