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thoughts on a postcard : marketing in ministry

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Postcard1
Postcard2
last week i sent out my very first graphically enhanced postcard. our church has had this ‘no color’ policy for some time. not sure why, but i was faithful to that till i just couldn’t take it anymore. i now just do it when it is needed. since we were doing a big kickoff for our remodeled youth program and reimagined focus. so we sent out postcards to all the youth. i had some of the leaders pick out our graphic, i told them it needed to be simple, clean and conveying an image they felt would speak to what we were getting into. i liked their choice, which worked out well for me. so with my first snazzy postcard attempt i was intrigued to read thoughts from the ministry marketing coach.

People Don’t Pay Much Attention to Your Postcards, Sorry!

..even the slickest advertisement, from even the best advertising agency
comes up against all the other clutter of competing messages in the
mailbox also clamoring for the attention of the people they want to
reach. What you need is a strategy for overcoming the clutter.

..

Frequency in advertising is the number of
times an advertisement is repeated to the same audience. Most
advertisers, especially religious advertisers, give up long before the
person they want to reach has been “reached” with the message.

..

This same thing happens when you are making evangelistic contacts or
following up on the people who visit your church. Just because guests
come a few times in a row doesn’t mean your follow-up work is done. How
long did it take you to understand what it means to follow Jesus?
Sadly, too many churches give up on people long before they should.

i don’t really have a frequency plan for sending out more of a postcard campaign. i just thought i’d use some stationary the wifey bought for me to write individual letters to people. maybe that will help

eikon : our attempt to save the church

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tomorrow we begin our regular meetings of "eikon" our artistic small group communities. the vision behind these groups is that they challenge members to enhance their art craft & practice and produce it in the light of their spiritual practice. we feel that what they put out through their artistic passion reflects their inner spiritual self. this may be a small part, but we see this recapture of arts in spiritual practice will help to save the church. someone might give great light to how God is seen in this growing world or maybe we will have a bunch of average folks who are creative in thought in engaging a new world with a traditional church.

some of our vision for this has been affirmed by the message of sir ken robinson. you’ve seen him here before, his ted talk is required visiting. he’s featured all over, and i’ve been digesting some of his works to see where his message for the educational system and church systems can overlap. i would encourage all my church cohorts out there, if you do not have an arts element to your program, get with it. you might just save the church as well.

in somewhat related ideas. hear from the youth yourself. these teachers did.

in the midst of change : the grand youth room

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we are in the midst of chaos of our physical environment at hfumc. we are building and it is great, we’ve been discerning it, planning it, talking it, raising funds for it, and waiting on the church for three years. but it’s starting to happen. our theme we are calling "industrial cathedral" which is a mix of what you’d see in a lot of youth rooms today, but we are trying to introduce elements of traditional old church, pews as sitting booths, icons, artwork, candles, and altar.. you might get the gist.

since we started our process i’ve been interested in seeing how other folks shape their spaces. i think it reflects a lot of what the leadership and community are about. most of the time youth leaders check out other spaces and have youth leader envy or arrogance. i might not have transcended that completely but i’d like to think i’m learning. so i was intrigued reading this post on the environment as learning space for youth ministry.

being a person that has an early childhood background in my university training i know all too well the purpose and important of environments in learning, behavior control, experience, and over all message. so i’m excited to see the finishing product of our efforts.