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June 8, 2006

Something We Can Learn about Marketing from Evangelists

No, not customer evangelists....Christian evangelists. As an example of how to scale customer-centric marketing, John Hagan offered a recent Malcolm Glawell article on Rick Warren, pastor of the Saddleback Church in California and author of The Purpose-Driven Life. Here's a link to Gladwell's article. The point of the comparison is this -- though Saddleback Church is very large (20,000 members, more or less), the church is divided into small groups according to interests. For example, a group of bikers are bonded around their motorcycles. This is not uncommon in very large churches and in fact has been pointed to a number of times by churches and denominations as exactly the way the Christian church got started -- people gathering together according to affiliation by interest, proximity, relation, etc., and worshipping together in homes.

Disclaimers on all levels: I read Gladwell's article when it came out and loved it; I read Warren's book about a year after it became a big sensation and didn't like it all that much; and I myself participate in a small interest-focused group as part of my 3000-member Methodist church (the group's interest is acoustic and folk music of all kinds, both playing it and listening to it live).

Posted by Renee Hopkins Callahan at June 8, 2006 3:16 PM | Category: marketing blogjam | 2 Comments

2 COMMENTS

Posted by: Chris at June 8, 2006 3:30 PM

Warren's "Purpose Driven Church" is a pretty good read, and perhaps more related to this topic.

However, "Purpose Driven Life" is poorly conceived, and poorly written. It's filled w/ superstition (which should embarass Christians) and great leaps to illogical conclusions. I couldn't get past the first week.

Posted by: Renee Hopkins Callahan at June 8, 2006 4:37 PM

Thanks for the comment! I have not read "Purpose-Driven Church," but I do agree with you about "Purpose-Driven Life." I think it became so popular because it had a basic theme that resonated with many Christians -- "it's not about you, it's really about God" -- but the way in which that theme was developed was embarrassingly facile.