Interview

For one weekly assignment, we had to conduct an interview with someone that was in our field of study. I conducted an interview with my mentor regarding questions about my topic, marketing the ministry, and it will serve as research for my final project. Conducting this interview was a great source of gaining information and it helps me tremendously in developing an idea of how marketing and media production is used within churches throughout the surrounding community.

QUESTION #1: How does your church currently communicate information to church members? (LIST SYSTEMS USED)

ANSWER: Website, Twitter, Facebook, Constant Contact and media screens located on the church campus.

Reflection: The church does a fantastic job in communicating information to its members in my opinion. They make sure that they use every multi-media system that they currently have to promote an event, sermon series, information, etc. Also, when he answered this question, it made me realize that they have a diverse set of systems of communication which is good because not everyone has access to all the same types of communication used by CMC.

QUESTION #2: How does your church currently communicate to unchurched people within the community to inform them about your church? (LIST SYSTEMS USED)

ANSWER: Website and all the major search engines. Signage and Facebook.

Reflection: CMC makes sure that they are using the latest forms of communication to be in contact and reach unchurched people. That is their mission…to spread the Gospel to the lost. In order to do this, they have to use systems that other people are using like Facebook.

QUESTION #3: A huge and growing trend of communication and advertising for businesses, organizations, churches, etc. is through social media. How does using social media help your church?

ANSWER: It allows us to communicate daily when needed to our followers. Words of encouragement and reminders and photos are most popular.

Reflection: From experience, I know that CMC uses Facebook and other types of social media at its fullest potential. They always add events to their page to promote upcoming and current events. Also, they are always posting various types of reminders and information. CMC and its members have greatly benefitted from including social media to communicate and advertise.

QUESTION #4: Do you feel that using marketing strategies (i.e. advertising, promotions, etc.) help your church in retaining attendance and gaining new visitors?

ANSWER: Absolutely. We’ve implemented an Event Communication System that helps make sure we cover all the marketing strategies. Reflection: If a church wants its members to stay and visitors to come they have to make sure that they are communicating events that the church is offering. CMC event communication system allows every event and piece of information for the church to be in one database. That information can then be transferred to the staff to see data from events, the church calendar, the church website, the church app, etc. Having an efficient system in place that incorporates marketing strategies through using the latest technologies is essential to be effective and efficient in marketing and especially marketing within the church.

QUESTION #5: In regards to using appealing graphics in your church, do you feel that current church members and even unchurched people are more drawn to appealing graphics or a bunch of text that might explain something? Why?

ANSWER: Images are far more attractive and when they are hyperlinked to more information are very effective. Most people scan emails and don’t read the fine print are lots of words. Images grab their attention.

Reflection: My mentor and I have actually had several conversations on this subject. In today’s society, people are moving at a fast pace and do not have time to read a lot of text. However, if you present them with a graphic that’s appealing and gets the point across, then people will take the time to look at it. You have to deliver information in a way that the people want and will take time to look at and not scan, and currently the way to do that is through images and graphics.

QUESTION #6: In terms of media production, does your church currently stream services and/or events online to broadcast to anyone? If so, how does this serve as an outreach?

ANSWER: We do stream live each service on Sunday. These services are archived for anyone that want to see later in the week. This helps people who want to check out a service before they actually attend in person.

Reflection: I have actually watched some of their services through online streaming, and it is a great experience. It really feels like you are there and are a part of their service. Recently, they switched to Live Stream to stream their services and it is a great resource. The church is trying to expand the way they reach to other people outside of the church and live on mission. Streaming their services live is a great way to spread the Gospel for someone that is sick, on vacation, on the other side of the world, etc. and still can hear and see the entire church service.

QUESTION #7: Do you think mixing marketing principles and ministry principles are a good or bad thing? Why?

ANSWER: It is a good thing. You have to market the ministry in today’s world. We live in a time where most people go to the internet to find what their looking for and see what others thinks about it.

Reflection: It is a great feeling to be surrounded with a staff and church that understands that marketing is key in today’s world to get people to come to church. The church understands that if everyone is on the internet finding out information they have to provide resources online so that people can find them. They are willing to implement whatever to be able to grow their church and see more people come to know Jesus as their personal Savior.

QUESTION #8: In the Bible, Jesus gives us our mission, which is to go out to all the nations and proclaim the Gospel. How do you think marketing the ministry helps contribute to the ongoing mission of spreading the Gospel?

ANSWER: We are taking the ministry and the message to where the people are and that is online. It is just using the tools that are in place in today’s tech savvy world.

Reflection: The church has committed to being a people on mission and they are continually implementing new ways in how they are going to accomplish this. The mission of Christians has always been to spread the Gospel but now that we have entered the 21st century and religion is being pushed out of society more and more everyday. New ways like marketing principles are having to be combined with the Gospel to have people listen to what the Word of God has to say and learn about the importance of salvation. Currently, the church understands that they have to market themselves against the secular world and the way to do that is mostly online.

QUESTION #9: What is one thing that you would like to add or change to your church in regards to marketing and media production to help your church grow?

ANSWER: We need to do more video messages to our followers. Images are nice and they are attractive but I think short video communications could be more effective.

Reflection: Having video messages to communicate to members and visitors is like an audio book. Some people like information to be read to them instead of reading it themselves. Since everyone is moving at a fast paced, having a short, appealing video to share information could be good. I know that my mentor and I have had discussions about these types of video messages and he mentioned of doing tutorials with them in addition to video messages about events. For example, a tutorial of how to operate their online giving could be helpful to members actually seeing what to do instead of reading a list of instructions. Also, if a short welcome video was uploaded onto the website, it allows a personal connection to be made between the church and the website visitor. Video messages have a huge potential in helping communicate to others about the church.

QUESTION #10: Many smaller churches are hesitant of incorporating marketing principles and media production within their services and ministries. What would you tell a church that was seeking guidance of whether or not to begin applying marketing and media within their church?

ANSWER: I would tell a church not to put themselves in a box and think that the same way things were done two decades ago will still work today. The message never changes but how people find you is constantly changing. We live in a high tech world now. If you are going to attract today’s youth with a never changing message you have to communicate it to them in a way they will understand and see.

Reflection: WOW! That is all I can say about this response. To be honest, I got chills when I read the response. We are constantly telling students to think outside of the box and churches have to do this too. Even if a church implements marketing principles and media production within their services and ministries, they are still preaching biblical principles. If only other churches could see this. The world is not the same as what it was ten years ago, so why must some think that church is the same today as it was ten years ago? Churches must remember the following when debating on whether to implement marketing and media within their church to market the ministry: IT IS A NEVER CHANGING MESSAGE BUT AN EVER CHANGING WAY OF COMMUNICATION!