July 30
Webster (R5p27) defines marketing as the total activities involved in the moving of goods from the producer to the consumer. Elsewhere (R5p28) the course notes suggest that there is a misconception that marketing is somehow unspiritual and at best is a tool used to manipulate people into making decisions that they wouldn’t otherwise make.
I put it to you that together these definitions actually fulfil Jesus’ commands in Matthew 28:18-20. Jesus says he has been given all authority over everything- doesn’t that include the tool of marketing? Far from being unspiritual, Jesus actually commands us to make disciples by spreading the Good News (transfer the information from the producer, Christ, to the consumer, the unbeliever) in order to make them disciples (manipulate them into making decisions they would not otherwise make).Is the Holy Spirit then, our marketeer in chief ? (141 words)
Yes, but...
ReplyDeleteFair enough (maybe) if you want to give Webster the last word. The OED has two relevant definitions:
(a) The action of buying or selling, esp. in a market; an instance of this. Now also (U.S.): shopping, esp. for groceries. Also fig. or in figurative context;
(b) The action or business of bringing or sending a product or commodity to market; (now chiefly, Business) the action, business, or process of promoting and selling a product, etc., including market research, advertising, and distribution.
As I tried to explain the other night, I've always understood that the modern discipline evolved through agricultural marketing - the buying and selling of produce, meat, wool, etc.
You might be as surprised as I was to learn from the OED that the term, in the first sense, dates back at least as far as 1561 and (wait for it) Thomas Norton's translation of Calvin's Institution of Christian Religion - "How filthy markettinges they vse, how vnhonest gaines they make wt their massinges."
My Collins has tells me that marketing is "the business of selling goods, including advertising, packaging, etc", and I think that's the sense in which it is being used in the course notes. So, do you think the gospel is a good that should be "packaged" and "promoted" so that it can be "sold" to more people?
I seem to recall that Jesus said somewhere that his followers had been given to him by God.
August 5
ReplyDeleteHi Ross,
I agree with you that the modernity discipline of marketing in the typical sense of the word is seen as well thought out church growth patterns such as Saddleback or Willow Creek. These programmes are aimed at church growth and to deepen the spiritual lives of their members (Prehn p16).
Post modernity has come to understand that the media is not the message: the message is the message. Telling the gospel story and that of the local church clearly, frequently and completely is ministry marketing (Prehn p 18). Incidentally a deliberate marketing strategy within our business is to be in all the right places at the right time, telling the business story, and as a policy, get clients to come to us. It works well, and I think is in line with the missional church’s “ come see Jesus” marketing.
In the context of Christianity being a war for souls, are you suggesting that if God gives Jesus his followers, then predestination negates the war and we need do nothing not even proclaim the gospel? If not, isn’t “all fair in love and war”? We should use any weapon in our arsenal, including appropriate marketing, in our efforts to preach (root: proclaim) the Gospel (the message to be transferred) especially in the sermon (root: to join or discuss). We are trying to win souls here, given the Holy Spirit actually does the converting, and we are the channel.