Marketing the Church?
St. Michael's Episcopal Church, Charleston, SC Photo by the Author
Many Christians when asked, “What is your church’s brand?” would take offense at the thought of “branding” or marketing their church. But, whether we want to admit it or not, your church has a brand. Hang in there with me for a minute and see if you agree…
If you define a brand as the sum of the experiences, expectations, and personality associated with a company, person, or service, your church does have a brand. The bottom line is that your brand is really about who you are. What is unique about your congregation? What ministries are you, as a church, involved in? What is your mission, as a church, and how are you working to achieve it? This is your brand.
If you fail to communicate who you are (your brand) to the public in an effective way, you are losing the power that your brand can bring you. In years past, a denominational association was enough to tell people what “kind” of church you were. Today, denominational “brands” have lost much of their significance because there is such a wide variety of church “personalities” and even beliefs within a given denomination.
Whether you agree with them or not, some of the large “community” churches have done a very good job of creating an identity and communicating that identity to the world. One of the ways that their brand identity is often reinforced is through the design of their facilities. Now, I will be the first to say that a church is not the building, but the buildings do communicate something about the particular church.
This aspect of branding has proven to be problematic for some older churches that have transformed themselves over time, but still function in buildings that were designed to accommodate a different kind of worship or education. They find themselves adapting their programs to their buildings; buildings that do not reinforce their brand identity. In some cases, adapting church buildings is an option, but more often than not, the buildings, to some degree, constrain the church’s identity.
It is very difficult to know what a particular church is going to “look like” in twenty or thirty years, therefore, designing buildings that are flexible and adaptable is crucial to facilitating the growth of the church. In many churches, Sunday school programs look very different today than they did twenty-five years ago, and as a result, the use of some older buildings has become inefficient and cumbersome.
If you are in the process of planning new facilities, ask yourself these questions: “Do our facilities reflect who we are as a church?”, “How adaptable are our buildings going to be if we change the way we are doing things?” and “How expensive is it going to be to make the buildings adapt to change?” As they say, change is one thing you can count on. Are you planning for it?
For additional thoughts on how your space reflects your brand, check out Chad McMillan’s post on Business Black Box at http://www.insideblackbox.com/?p=797
So often we overlook and take for granted the architecture and infrastructure that make up our day to day lives but they are often the keys to so many things!
Doug, Architecture can enable us or be an ostacle that we have to work around. This applies to churches, as well as, other types of buildings. Thanks for the comment.
Joel, Zen is gorgeous. Jeff and Rhonda gave me a quick tour. Congratulations.
Re: church architecture, fascinating topic! Buildings are meaningful signs and symbols, not simply (although they must be) functional spaces. If the character of my Church building said, “Eternal, true, holy, enduringly solid, majestic, and transcendent,” I would think it corresponded to the ideal in Hebrews 1:3, which talks about Christ being the “radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of His nature.” We ache for the infinite and beauty is a pointer to Truth.
That’s a big job. You’re a brave man!
Great post. Design affects learning and human interaction…the quality of the design may determine the direction and degree.
another way to look at it is to ponder what our architecture says about what we think about God’s character. if a church’s architecture focuses mainly around functionality for its people then we have missed a great opportunity to use designed space to elevate people’s minds and hearts into a realm that they would unlikely be reminded of elsewhere. perhaps a dose of both a design that is inviting to the community as well as a design that invites people to leave the world behind and seek after the Almighty is the best balance.
I look forward to updates on this blog. People do not realize- whether church, home, or commercial facility-architecture leads our response to that setting. Even the blind are drawn to certain architectures.
Richard,
Thanks for the complement on Zen Greenville. I agree with your comments. The blog post was not intended to address worship space in particular. But when it comes to space for worship, there seem to be two philosophical extremes with a spectrum spanning the two. One end of the spectrum is the “meeting house” approach that views a worship space simply as a place for Christians to gather for worship and the design need only to respond to the functional requirements of the particular church. The other end of the spectrum, which is associated more with orthodox christianity, is the view that space for worship is “sacred space”, rich is symbolism, so that to be present in the space is to be reminded of the Holiness of God and the richness of His Truth. Most protestant churches today fall closer to the “meeting house” end of the spectrum.
Mark,
I agree. A building can be a great teaching tool. In reality, budget often trumps symbolism and meaning during the design process.