Church Marketing Myth No. 8

Church Marketing Myth No. 8: The pastor knows best

If you work in a church chances are you interact with pastors and leaders who are Godly, wonderful men and women. One myth that seems to pervade some church office's around the world is that pastors/senior leader has insight and wisdom on all things marketing/design/creativity in general that everyone else doesn't. 

It could be as simple as font selection, layout, or deeper more significant issues.

Now before you slam me. Or leave comments on this post about the lack of respect I have for spiritual leaders, hang on for just one moment. The idea for this post comes from, wait for it, a pastor.

This pastor has said to me that when it comes to communications or marketing, they think that 'religious experts' should listen more and take more advice from 'communications experts'. Not surprisingly, I couldn't agree more.

Here's the deal, its all about leading with your strengths. I know what my strengths are. I know what they aren't. I'm focused on what I do really well, not what I'm average at. Different pastors have different strengths I don't have. I don't claim to have insights into their various spheres of experience or expertise, but for some reason it can sometimes happen the other way around.

My advice for pastors:

Prepare your brief well. If you don't know what a brief is, ask your communications person. Spend time developing and discovering what you are aiming to do. Focus on the 'why' more than the 'how'. Then release your talent to do what they do best. Also, listen to your communications/graphic designer/videographer – they really do know what they are doing, but often out of respect they will defer to your opinion because of who you are.

My advice for communications peeps/graphic designers/videographers etc:

Listen to your pastor, especially at the briefing stage. They have an idea or plan in mind. Get clarity on the direction and agreement before you start creating or communicating. They have invested everything they are into what you are about to start working on. Respect that. Be gentle and humble in your interaction with them. Have courage.

Related posts
Church Marketing Myth No. 1
Church Marketing Myth No. 2
Church Marketing Myth No. 3
Church Marketing Myth No. 4
Church Marketing Myth No. 5
Church Marketing Myth No. 6
Church Marketing Myth No. 7

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3 comments

  1. I couldn’t agree me.
    As a follow up thought – one area that I find interesting is that those in the communications field don’t actually know how to communicate verbally. I feel that more pastors would make the best decision regarding church marketing if those with the knowledge would communicate clearly and on the pastors level.
    Great article again. I’ve enjoyed your Church Marketing Myth series. Keep it coming!

  2. So what you are effectively saying is “communications people, treat any church given assignment as you would a normal client assignment – use all of your best client facing skills to understand the requirements and then exercise your creativity and professional judgement to make it happen”. And for pastors: “don’t micro-manage – especially if you have no background in the area”. Sounds like a normal professional client relationship.

  3. Yeah I gotta totally agree with Rich. In fact, as much as this is true regardless of the client (church or secular), it also applies equally to the service being provided. From IT perspective it’s the same story. Funnily enough as a church IT guy I’m plugged in enough to what going on in IT (especially church IT through http://citrt.org) to know how IT can serve the mission of the church.
    Pastors are (or should be) good at pastoring.
    Communications gurus are good at communicating.
    And IT geeks are good at IT.
    Interesting that pastors don’t try to tell the church accountant how to balance the books

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