I need some book suggestions. I’m going to Memphis next week and really would like to get some good stuff. Really not looking at a particular topic at this time.
Anything doesn’t have to be spiritual or even business related. Just something good that I will walk away with going: Man that was awesome!
If I pick your book, there will be something awesome in store for you, so really sell it!!!
Archive - November, 2009
Books??? Suggestions???
Ministry Marketing Part 1: Overview
Well I thought it would be best to give you an overview of what exactly is Ministry Marketing? Well to start off I’ll give you the AMA’s (American Marketing Association) recently updated definition (2007) and then my own.
AMA:
Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.
Me:
The art of creating and aligning content, communication and process in order to create value for people that could be affected by your ministry.
Ok so what does that even mean? Well Marketing even when I was in college from 2004-2007 was more of a function or a department of a company. Recently though, this thought has changed. Marketing is no longer a function or a department, but an activity that every member of the corporation is responsible for. So anything that your ministry does creates some kind of value for people.
Is the value that you individually creating for your ministry positive or negative?
But with so many ministries and different people how can you control the value that is being sent out? Great question with a simple yet complex answer.
You can’t.
You most certainly can do things to affect it but you will never be able to control it.
But why write this blog about Marketing if we can’t control it. Because I think that we can affect it in a way that provides clear value to a world that is hurting and needs help from a Savior that can satisfy all of their needs.
For fear of losing you with more boring rhetoric, I’ll give you some juicy tidbits to consider for your church or ministry.
Three things that need the most help
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Purpose:
2 necessary questions. First what is it? What is your purpose? God created each of us differently and each of our ministries should mirror that. God put us in a place to meet specific needs for people and gave you and the people in your ministry specific skills in order to do so. So once you know what your purpose is then ask this question. Does this (communication piece, video, event, game, song, etc.) satisfy our purpose?
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Communication from top down:
Not talking about just staff here, although Lord knows we need help there as well. But your volunteers are value holders just as much as you are. Here is one of my favorite quotes and something that I try and live by. It comes form George Bernard Shaw.
“The problem with communication…is the illusion that it has been accomplished.”
Don’t judge how well you’ve communicated purpose and vision by your most committed people. Instead judge by your least committed people. Then you’ll know how effective you are at communication your vision and purpose.
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We’ve always done it this way:
I don’t think this is necessary a problem on most church staffs when coming up with ideas. But when it comes to the implementation, the hill to climb in order to persuade, convince, get buy-in, bribe people into changing is just way to big. We’ve got to allow God to lead our change and do things that create value in the individual way that He created our ministry/church/person to do.
O there’s more fun on the horizon. What do you think about everyone being a shareholder? How about the three things I listed? Any that you would add?
Gotta check this out!
So u know me. I love to point you all elsewhere. Sorta backwards for a blogger. Anyway this person’s name is Michael Foster and his company is Salty Graphic Studio. He is a super animator and does alot of Children’s Ministry geared stuff.
If he’s not on your radar, you’re making a mistake. Check out what he just dropped on the world!!!
Ministry Marketing
So I’ve really been thinking about this thing alot lately. And yesterday oddly enough, CMS ran a post on a Church Marketing Plan provided by the United Methodist Church that is really intense. I have never seen a plan like this for the church.
Do they exist? I’m sure they do.
Have I ever seen one? Nope.
So if you don’t know, I have a degree in Marketing. It’s something that I really enjoy. I am not a salesman. I didn’t go to school to be a salesman. Marketing is not Sales. They are very different. So I thought over the past few weeks, how it would be fun to give some things that I have thought about for a long time as far as Marketing and the Church are concerned. Then I saw the post and just had to jump on it. So over the course of this week I’ll throw out just a few tips that I think will help some people. Not only that I will pose some questions that you need to answer. I hope this will be helpful if you are a Marketing persona or do some sort of Church Communication/Promotion.
But maybe you are the opposite. Maybe you feel that this is the furthest thing from your job in the church. Everyone plays a part in the Marketing and Branding of a Ministry. From the pastors, to paid staff, to trustees, to voluneers, we all have a part to play. If you don’t know what yours is in your particular church then I hope that this series will help you.
I’m pretty pumped to give you guys some advice on something that I actually know a little bit about. I mean I love Children’s Ministry, but I am very much a Daniel-son grasshopper guy. And no I’m not an expert by any means when it comes to Marketing, but I got some skills, yo.
So hope that you get some useful tips from this lil thing! Let me know what you think when we get rolling!
Greatest Message I’ve Ever Heard…Literally
So I literally never do this. I don’t usually pimp out Brookwood Church stuff. I think there are a ton of resources out there including ours and I just don’t pimp our stuff. I try and give you overviews and strategies that we use in hopes that you will consider ideas and come up with your own.
This is Different!
I heard the greatest message I have ever heard in my entire life. This message is for everyone except kids but especially parents. I will tell you this, it’s heavy. There will be emotions that this message will evoke that you might not have known are there. It’s beneficial for you to talk about these things.
I never, never, ever, ever do this. This message is that important. You need to watch or listen to it. It’s about an hour, it’s worth it.
Yes I am crazy enough to think that I just told you to watch or listen to a message that is about an hour and you will watch it because I’m sounding crazy.
Greatest message ever.
Here is the link for the video.
Let me know what you think.
Getting involved in the wave
Asilomar Surf – Asilomar State Park, Pacific Grove, California, originally uploaded by PatrickSmithPhotography.
So I have been a bit disconnected from my blog for a bit. Mainly cuz I’m busy writing in a medium other than the blog and at the same time, I’ve spent a ton of time with Google Wave.
It’s cool to connect with alot of kidmin peeps and talk about the big things and be able to talk about them in detail all in real time. Overall the technology behind the Wave is faulty and has some bugs. But the concept and mainly the people have made the overall troublesome tech experience a complete joy.
It’s awesome. I don’t know anything about invites or anything so if I get some then I will let you guys know first hand after I throw some out to some staffers.
It’s really cool.
Other than that my wife is finishing her last semester of classes before a semester of student teaching and then graduation. I’m so proud of her. She’s a newlywed (I guess, not sure when that title becomes something else), she commutes to school, she works with a boy with sever autism and She’s married to me which is probably the hardest job of all. So proud and yet she needs some prayers through some tough assignments to get her through. If you get a few, I would love it if you could talk to Him for her.
As far as me. I’m ok. Getting to write and really work on teaching right now. Not only that but getting to work on our own processes at Brookwood Church and others’ processes make me very excited! I love the purpose behind the processes.
That’s where we’re at. Let me know if there is anything that I can pray for, for all of you people!
Look for some fun stuff coming up!
Youtube for kids
Just did a little checking of some old bookmarks I kept. Here is one that I never got around to posting about. CNN had a piece on Designing and Internet for Kids. Thought it was a pretty cool read. You can read it here. But I wanted to highlight the site they posted.
ZuiTube provides a kid friendly and kid appropriate place for your kids to browse online. So basically a safe “Youtube for kids” even though I know that most kids can are already keen on the interface for Youtube, this is a safe place.
The site is ad free because of the parent browser platform that is called KidZui. If you are a parent and are looking for a browser that is safe for your kids, then this might be for you. Internet is a wonderful, wonderful place but full of craziness. Don’t be naive, take action and be proactive to keep your kids from alot of junk.
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