The Idol of Marketing
I have heard many sermons on idols. Most talk about the idol of money, television, or even family. They tend to be objects that we spend more time with or put more importance on then God. But what about the idols that we trust more than God. I am talking about the idol of marketing. Now don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of marketing, but it can be dangerous. Here is the definition of marketing.
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.
Now this all sounds fine, but the dangerous part is us. We do the work, we come up with the creative and we see the results. We forget about the Creator who gave us creativity and worship our products. Websites are worshiped the same as any statue in the old testament. Copy writing can become gospel to those who read and write it. We place our faith in these idols in looking at church growth, and God becomes a side note.
So what then do we do? Should we just give up? No, may it never be! We take these tools and place them before God. We trust in our Lord and pray that He will use the tools he has given us for His glory. We will work hard at what we do, but not rely on our man made products. God is the creator of the heavens and earth. He made us from dust, and through Him all things are possible. That is something I need to remember when working on my next campaign. Marketing can point to God, but it can never become Him.
Filed under other, scripture |4 Responses to “The Idol of Marketing”
Leave a Reply
Here is a question for you, and lets be honest. When thinking about marketing do we turn to God first with faith and prayer, or do we first look to “experts” like Seth Godin? I tend to look to the “experts” first.
Wow. Fabulous post. Especially in the realm of faith based blogs and websites, sometimes the Creator is lost in hindsight to whatever site or marketing campaign is being used.
I too feel that sometimes we focus too much on numbers rather than the effect our posts or product can have on simply one individual.
If someone blogs for a total of five years and in the end only ends up changing the life of one individual or reader through that time period, does that nigate the fact that even though the blog might not have had a huge amount of readers it is not as valuable or the work was done in vain.
I continue to remind myself that God is not a God of numbers, but of heart issues.
I would hope that we would first turn to the experts. Yes, faith and prayer are important in having a constant conversation with God and to guide us through our day, but when we think about marketing, we think about being effective. The message is God. If we are poor, ineffective communicators/marketers then we don’t get the message out. The message is important and the medium needs to be effective.
People that want to be pastors go to seminary to learn how to be effective pastors. They don’t go there just to be better christians and they don’t just go off and start a church based on an already established faith.
If God has given you the gift or talent to be good at marketing and you feel the call to use that gift to share God’s word, then he will give you the opportunity to be effective and to do His will.
“We do the work, we come up with the creative and we see the results. We forget about the Creator who gave us creativity and worship our products.”
We do the work to glorify the creator. In marketing faith, God should be our final product. If our final product is a tooth brush and our marketing is effective, we shouldn’t worship our campaign or the tooth brush. We should be thankful to God for giving us a talent that we can find pride in.
And we may only reach one person if we are poor communicators with our message of faith, but that may be just what God had planned. We don’t do what we do as christians to keep a tally or to find favor with God, we do what we do because God IS in our hearts and he loves us very much. He has to because we continuously fall short.
TR, thanks for the comment! I agree with you for the most part, but I do think we need to make sure we always go to God first when starting anything. Prayer and a biblical understanding should be the foundation for everything we do, especially when dealing with sharing the gospel, and that is what church marketing is. I do not think experts are bad, I read them daily, I just think that we might go to them before we humble ourselves before God and ask for guidance.
I guess what I am getting at also is do we trust that God can move without our brilliant marketing. Do we trust more in marketing to grow a church then we trust God? I understand that the end result is still God, but it is more of a heart issue for me. Marketing is a great thing in the church if we place our trust in God with it. I think we are on the same page, just saying it differently.