A woman in this video makes the comment that everything she learned about marketing she learned from church. She was addressing the fact that evangelicals have become expert at recruitment and indoctrination, starting with children.
What do you think?
She said the church is bringing the youth in before they can be indoctrinated by other beliefs by having pizza parties, slumber parties, and concerts. The church I've attended for 20 years does all of that. The youth director is a really nice guy. I believe he genuinely believes what he's telling these kids, and I know he really loves them. But yes, all of this and more is what is done to attract the youth. Yes, the church absolutely wants the whole worlds to believe what they do. There's no question about that.
ReplyDeleteSo do you think their good at "marketing?"
ReplyDeleteOne thing I always heard was "You have to get them when they're young, because most people become Christians before they're 21."
Of course, the converse of that is the fact that relatively few adults convert to Christianity. (Another topic altogether)
I think that most evangelical churches are pretty good at sales and marketing. I know when I was a pastor I was always thinking about that... how to attract and persuade the unchurched/nonbelievers. Everything we did centered around that.
"So do you think their good at "marketing?""
ReplyDeleteI guess in terms of sheer numbers, yes. Customer loyalty? I don't know. It seems to me that if the attraction is the marketing tools and not the product itself, when the customer realizes the product isn't all it's cracked up to be, they part ways with the brand.
In other words our church gets a particularly large number of youth aged kids in the door. Keeping them past that time when all the "fun stuff" that attracted them in the first place is over (i.e. college/adulthood) is kind of rare.
So when they learn critical thinking skills and are exposed to competing ideas... game over.
ReplyDeleteIn a lot of cases I'd say, yes. I think most of the older generation thinks it's due to the partying atmosphere in college. They believe them to be backslidden, but speaking from a different perspective I'd say that's generally not the case. When these youth have spent their early childhood days in VBS and Sunday School learning that creation was in six literal days and that there was a worldwide flood then they go off to college and learn about evolution and the evidences against a worldwide flood(among other things) they loose trust in the church and in the Bible.
ReplyDeleteMy last six or so years in the church was part of an extremely evangelistic bunch; the last four or so in a church plant. All I can say is HELL YES(!), it is all marketing and almost always at children. And while we say this and that about God working and God moving, behind closed doors we are embarrassingly transparent about all the stuff WE had to do to make others believe. All the programs, all the parties, all the events, all the . . . bait and switch is really what it was. And here I am struggling with a truck load of doubt, and it is being confirmed all the time. If we KNOW we only have a chance to convince another person while they are still young and don't think critically for themselves; how can we not see it just really isn't that convincing and even more importantly, no divine being is actually welding any demonstrable power. Is all about us, our marketing, and it all takes place in our own heads; our own religious memes we try to pass that frankly have no basis in reality anywhere else.
ReplyDeleteGood comments Pete.
ReplyDelete