“I did not know there was a woman’s conference in October,” said a group of ladies at a denominational district meeting I attended last month. About five women (out of the ten attending) shared that they had not heard about the event the denomination had planned. In fact, one woman lived in the town where the conference occurred.
That story illustrates, I think, the need for a new type of marketing that exists now in our culture.[1] People are busy and have many different ways information is communicated to them. People receive print mail, phone calls, text messages, emails, Facebook updates, Instagram posts, X tweets, direct messages, app notifications, and many other methods of communication.
What do churches do with this new situation we find ourselves in as we try to promote our ministries and events to people that are too busy to hear us? Oh yes, and did I mention you (as a church staff worker) are still expected to prepare sermons, visit church members in the hospital, prepare a pretty bulletin each week for the church worship services, organize volunteers for the kids ministries, make sure the bills are paid for the church utilities, and get trained on how to ethically use Artificial Intelligence!?
In light of this dilemma, I’d like to share with you a few tips on improving your marketing at your church as well as a checklist you can follow to ensure you maximize the promotion your church ministries and events receive. Everything I share in this article could be summarized in this way: communicate information in different formats to different audiences. A good example of this is seen in the book of Ezra.
Communication Methods in the Old Testament
The Israelites lived in a culture that had a common practice of conveying information in different ways and forms. We see examples of this ancient Near Eastern practice in Ezra 1, Ezra 6, and on the famous Cyrus Cylinder.
In Ezra 1 we learn about king Cyrus of Persia who grants permission for a group of his captives, the Israelites, to return to Judah.[2] We read about this decree in Ezra 1:2–4,
Thus says Cyrus king of Persia, “The Lord, the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and He has appointed me to build Him a house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Whoever there is among you of all His people, may his God be with him! Let him go up to Jerusalem which is in Judah and rebuild the house of the Lord, the God of Israel; He is the God who is in Jerusalem. Every survivor, at whatever place he may live, let the men of that place support him with silver and gold, with goods and cattle, together with a freewill offering for the house of God which is in Jerusalem.”[3]
This message we have recorded in Ezra 1:2–4 is a specific form of a more generalized proclamation that Cyrus had made to many different groups of captives he had under subjection.
We know about that general proclamation as it was placed on a clay cylinder—the Cyrus Cylinder—written in Babylonian cuneiform. The Cyrus Cylinder was discovered in 1879 by Assyro-British archaeologist Hormuzd Rassam in the foundations of the Esagilia (the temple of the god Marduk in Babylon). The Cyrus Cylinder is currently located on display in the British Museum in London.
While the Cyrus Cylinder does not mention the Israelites who were allowed to return to Judah, most scholars believe the Cyrus Cylinder is the general decree of the king. In other words, there would have been many specific decrees given to the different captive groups that Cyrus had inherited when he overtook the Babylonian empire. Thus the Israelites would have been one of those groups that received a special decree, and that special decree is what’s recorded in Ezra 1:2–4.
It’s also important to note that Ezra 1:2–4 was the Hebrew verbal proclamation. That proclamation was first in Aramaic, the trade language of the day, and then written down in a longer form. But at first these proclamations were given verbally and in short form to get the word out, then written down later and sometimes expanded more with technical language or details added to the first brief verbal declaration.
As we turn the pages of our Bible we read about the same decree of Ezra 1:2–4 appearing in a different form with a different focus. Ezra 6:3–5 reads,
In the first year of King Cyrus, Cyrus the king issued a decree: “Concerning the house of God at Jerusalem, let the temple, the place where sacrifices are offered, be rebuilt and let its foundations be retained, its height being 60 cubits and its width 60 cubits; with three layers of huge stones and one layer of timbers. And let the cost be paid from the royal treasury. Also let the gold and silver utensils of the house of God, which Nebuchadnezzar took from the temple in Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, be returned and brought to their places in the temple in Jerusalem; and you shall put them in the house of God.”
At first glance Ezra 6:3–5 appears to refer to a separate decree from the decree in Ezra 1:2–4. While Ezra 1:2–4 focuses on permission to return to Jerusalem, Ezra 6:3–5 focuses on permission to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem.[4] Ezra 6:3–5 is also different than the decree of Cyrus in Ezra 1:2–4 possibly because Ezra 6:3–5 was an official administrative written record not an oral proclamation.
Ezra 1, Ezra 6, and the Cyrus Cylinder reveal a common and accepted practice in ancient Near Eastern cultures: information was often communicated in different formats (verbally, written on a scroll, and on a clay cylinder) while also being slightly altered (a general decree for all captives, a specific decree for the return of the Jews, and a specific decree for permission for the Jews to rebuild their temple).
Two Tips to Communicate Information Effectively
With that said, I would like to encourage you, as a busy staff person at a church, to adopt a similar practice. Find ways to communicate your information in different formats to different audiences. If we follow this practice from the ancient Near East, here are two marketing tips for busy church staff.
- Place all information where people can go and get it when they want. Aggregate all of your church’s announcements and information into one central location so that when people decide they need to know about something, they can always go and find out about it. The best place is probably on your website, possibly a monthly newsletter, or maybe a weekly e-mail that you send to the church.
- Consistently deliver that information following a schedule. This might be in your weekly announcements that you share verbally. Perhaps you do this through pre-service and post-service slides that are displayed on the church screens for people to see. Maybe it’s a daily Facebook post about different things going on within your church community. For our church I send a weekly e-mail update every Wednesday at 9:00 AM with all information about upcoming ministries and events at our church.[5] Regardless of the method you choose, find a way that you can consistently and regularly distribute that information to people.
A Basic Checklist of Marketing Methods
While those are a few tips to help you market your ministries among the busyness of your church life, here’s a basic checklist you can use to help you as you prepare and promote ministries for your church. Simply ask yourself these following questions:
- Has this information been inserted into our weekly bulletin six weeks in advance?
- Have we placed this information on our website or a location people can easily find it if they need it?
- Have we included this information in our emails sent to our church?
- Have we posted this information on Facebook?
- Is there a local newspaper or community calendar we need to tell about this ministry, event, or service?
- Have we posted this information onto X and Instagram?
- Are there any local Christian radio stations that might like their listeners to know about what we’re doing?
- Is there a sign in the front of our church building that we can use to advertise this event or ministry?
- Are there specific people that might be interested in this that we should call on the phone and talk to about this?
- Is there a way for us to convey this information by text message to people in our church?
- Have we prepared pre-service and post-service slides that we can show on the screens both before and after our worship gatherings?
- Is there a way we could create a brief video about this event so people can “watch” and “listen” about it instead of read about it?
Our churches need to assume a new position of marketing our ministries and events. This new method consistently and comprehensively tells our people about things they want to know about and should know about. But in order to do this effectively (for our audience) and efficiently (for us as church staff), we must communicate information in different formats to different audiences.
[1] I think this story also reveals an assumption, expectation, and perhaps even an entitlement that people have now: “If I didn’t know about something it’s your fault.” It doesn’t matter if the organization sent five emails, made four Facebook posts, and shared three Instagram images about an event because if a person didn’t open the emails (because she said she receives too many), did not see the Facebook posts (because she hasn’t accepted invitations to “like” or “follow” the page), and didn’t come across the Instagram posts (because she doesn’t have time for one more social media platform), then it’s the organizations fault that she didn’t know about the event, not her fault.
[2] While Cyrus arrives abruptly in our Bible, he had enjoyed a slow and steady rise to power for twenty years prior to this. When he ascended the throne in Persia it was a small kingdom. (Persia we now know as Iran.) In 559 BC he became king of Anshan. Over time he conquered Media and Lydia. Then continued and eventually controlled what we now know today as Israel, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Russia. This man led a small nation to become the most powerful empire in the world and change world history. His tomb is in the Fars province of Iran at the cite of the ancient Persian city of Pasargadae.
[3] Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible, Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission.
[4] See Gary V. Smith, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Cornerstone Biblical Commentary, vol. 5b (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2010), 61–62.
[5] You can view samples of what I send out each week by visiting www.LakeviewMissionaryChurch.com and clicking on the “view the past email updates here.”