Sad state of affairs

Sign of the times.

 

So, do we need MBA's instead of Bible College graduates? The Lord's Church is not a business.

 

That is really sad. It is time that people got back to what is important without all the froth and bubble.

 

Once again, everyone jumps so far to the extreme that a serious conversation is almost impossible.
First of all, this article is by a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor who is primarily quoting a religion professor from Duke University. Could you possibly expect to read an article that was favorable to evangelical Christianity?

As to the issue, no, of course the church is not a business. Should we try to run the church like it was a business? No, of course not.

Can we look at successful businesses that use successful marketing plans and learn some things that will make us more effective in reaching the communities we are in? I guess that depends on how locked down tight you mind is and how much or how little you care about the people around you.

I worked in a sales position for over ten years, and in that time attended what seemed like endless sales training meetings. I can't tell you how many times a sales technique was presented and my first reaction was "Wow, I can use that for evangelism!" And the reverse was true as well, as I would go through different evangelism courses, I would learn things that also applied to sales.

It takes some marketing skills to reach this generation, and the fact that most churches aren't very good at it or just don't care for it is evident by the fact that for the most part we aren't reaching them. If your church is like most, you can walk in on Sunday morning and look for the 18 to 35 year olds and you just won't see very many.

It's time we got back to what's really important. People have to come to a place where they believe the Gospel and accept Christ and the sacrifice he made for our sin. But how can they do that if they don't hear it? If our churches don't learn how to reach out to the communities that they are in, in a way that connects with people where they are spiritually, emotionally and intellectually, we're going to lose a generation. We can learn a lot from some good marketing people about how to get that done.