As expected, Kem had an incredible session today at the Ministry Communications Conference in Houston. Here are some questions I heard Kem ask today that I think every church should consider:

• Who are you talking to, and why should those people spend their time and attention on your church?
• What is your church doing to reduce the noise in people’s lives? Or, are you just adding to their junk mail?
• What are the barriers that are preventing people from taking their next step?
• Rather than asking What do we need to tell them? (about us), ask What do they need to know? (about them).
• Are you trying to make life easier for your staff/team instead of for your audience/guests?
• What can people get at your church that they can’t get elsewhere? (and were not talking about other churches)
• Are you doing it because it works or because it’s cool?
• Are you regularly saying "no?"
• Can you maintain it? (If not, that’s an instance when you really should say "no.")

As a bonus, these are the two questions we’re trying to answer when someone visits our website: Is this a fit for me? If so, how do I take my next step? Go ahead. Test it. Everything we have on our website has been streamlined to answer those two questions. If you find something that doesn’t fit, let me know.

And, by the way, the PowerPoint operations were flawless today. No one has ever clicked the "enter" button more skillfully, if I can say so myself.

Brand Autopsy makes the point that action speaks louder than advertising and cites the example of Wal-Mart’s recent response to Katrina. That’s interesting, because we’ve found that to be the case in our "business" as well. I think the strategy is outlined somewhere in our business plan.

"Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, ‘Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead" (James 2:15-17).

Isn’t it amazing how truth is revealed? I even think we see it from time to time in corporate America. That’s why I love the challenge of studying what’s happening in the business world and filtering it through Scripture. There are times when I see something that really affirms God’s design.

By the way, action literally speaks louder than advertising for the church as well. You can’t buy the media coverage you’ll receive if you remain faithful to God’s design for the church and stay active in people’s lives by addressing their physical and emotional needs. Here are just a few examples.

Granger Community Church is mentioned in an article posted today on USA Today’s site. The article is on church marketing.

Last week I mentioned that Buzzmarketing by Mark Hughes has been one of my favorite reads of the summer. As it turns out, Mark actually responded to that post and sent me a nice note. That speaks volumes to me about the integrity of the message he’s trying share with the rest of us mere mortals.

The entire book is filled with great insights about getting the word out about your organization. Some marketplace books you read take a lot to translate into the church world. This one doesn’t take much imagination to see how the principles Mark teaches easily apply to what we’re hoping to accomplish through ministry. As I’ve mentioned previously, about 75% of the people who attend our church come for the first time at the invitation of a friend. Almost all the growth at Granger is the result of word-of-mouth (buzz) marketing.

It’s worth the price of the book, though, just to catch the nugget on "corporate brands" versus "personality brands." Here’s Mark’s sample list of companies in these two categories:

• HP (corporate) vs. Apple (personality)
• Microsoft vs. Google
• Breyers vs. Ben & Jerry’s
• Pontiac vs. VW Beetle
• uBid vs. eBay

Mark isn’t talking about branding a personality. (We certainly aren’t looking for that in churches.) Instead, he’s encouraging us to give our brands personality. Mark shares:

"What’s so special about personality? Without it, products can certainly still succeed, but they lack consumer passion–a driving goal in creating buzz, marketing, branding, and buying."

Here’s my concern. As churches experience success and growth, I think there’s a tendency to become more corporate and have less personality. They continue to ride the horse that got them to where they are, but they forget that part of their earlier success was because the ministry took risks, challenged the status quo and had personality that fueled passion. Because of that, the church generated buzz. People wanted their friends to come check out what was happening and share the same experience.

As time goes by, though, I think churches begin to fall into to patterns. They take fewer risks. They begin to follow rules. They become more top-down. They are formulaic in their approach. It may be the very same approach that brought them the success they experienced earlier, but now it’s lost its buzz-quotient. The approach may be different than other churches, but it’s the same for everyone that’s attending the church.

I’m not suggesting, obviously, that churches should change the message they are teaching. And, I’m not suggesting churches need to reinvent their mission or primary objectives. I do, however, think growing churches need to constantly consider the personality of their ministry and ask the though questions: What is the personality of our church? Are people still passionate about what we offer? If not, what do we need to do differently to recapture that passion?

Part of the answer may be picking up Mark’s book to begin to challenge the way you’re approaching others with your message.

I’m heading down to Texas in about 5 weeks to check out what’s happening at MinistryCOM Houston–a conference designed for church communications professionals. My primary reason for going is to cheer for Kem Meyer, our communications directors. She’s going to be presenting a workshop (and this one) at the conference that you don’t want to miss if you have anything to do with communications and marketing for your ministry/organization.

Kem is the real deal. With her years of marketplace and ministry experience, she has led our church through a complete overhaul of our communications strategy. We’re now more focused. The messages are clearer. Kem is one of those people on my team that is constantly stretching how I view the world and my leadership approach. She’ll certainly challenge you to consider how you can more effectively get your message heard within the church and in your community.

Don’t believe me? Here’s what someone who has attended her WiredChurches.com workshop had to say about Kem.

Hope to see you in Houston!

Here’s a great story from Wired on how blogging is changing how we get our news and how that’s impacting the conversations that are taking place through the Web. It includes a look at Technorati, a leading search engine dedicated to blogsites. Technorati is tracking over 13 million blogs–up from 100,000 only 2 years ago. That’s an amazing wave of change in how we interact with each other.

I’m feeling quite honored today because one of my favorite blogs has plugged my site two days in a row. The boys over at ChurchMarketingSucks.com have revisited a couple of previous posts. Here’s their take on:

• 10 Easy Ways to Keep Me from Visiting Your Church Because I Visited Your Website, and
• The Top 10 Innovative Churches list that Terry and I announced last week.

Thanks guys!

Creating Passionate Users is one of my favorite blogs, and they’ve just posted a challenging thought regarding emotions versus logic. Here’s the key thought:

"People don’t choose rationally to listen to your message and then have a feeling about it. They choose to listen to your message because they have a feeling about it."

And that goes for men as well. Oh my. If that’s true, what does that mean for the church? What does that mean for our message?

Wake up folks. This one better grab your attention. The truth is people may never hear your message if you’re only playing to their intellect. This should cause you to pause and reevaluate how you teach, and it should reinforce the important role the arts have in helping people hear and then respond to your message. Oh my…

Brand Autopsy passed along a handful of marketing tips yesterday that I think can challenge how we try to position our ministries within our communities. The key to remember, however, is that other churches are not our competition. Our competition is everything in the culture that is keeping someone from walking through the doors of a church to experience a service and consider the claims of Christ. If we stop trying to compete with other churches and start trying to have an impact in today’s culture, I think our message will be much more potent and attractive to the unchurched.

I took the time recently to figure out what it is, in my mind, that makes for effective communications from the platform on Sunday mornings. This might not apply to anyone else, but I listed what really works for me. With that in mind, here are the:

10 Easy Ways to Keep Tony Morgan Awake and Engaged During Your Entire 30-Minute Message

1. Be real. Let people see the actual human inside you. Most times that will occur through your personal stories.
2. Talk like normal people talk. I didn’t grow up in the church, so I don’t understand when you talk with a Christian accent.
3. Use humor. If you don’t make me laugh, I’m probably going to tune you out. By the way, the best humor is revealed through your everyday life.
4. Don’t tell me what to think. Lead me on the journey toward truth, but let me reach my own conclusions. In other words, don’t try to sell it.
5. Be honest. If I think you’re credible, there’s a better chance I’ll think your message is credible.
6. Avoid being too polished. In fact, I love it when you leave your prepared statements and share anything off the cuff.
7. Reveal your weaknesses. As silly as it may seem, it makes me smile when I hear about your mistakes. It helps me to respect the areas where you are gifted.
8. Be brief. Shorter is better. I’m probably only going to remember one or, at the most, two things that you say.
9. Make me smart. I don’t care how smart you are, but I like it when you make me feel smart. That’s easier when you use small words and make it easy for me to apply what you’re teaching.
10. Tell me why I should care. Help me understand why I should listen. If you don’t help me understand why it’s relevant to my life, I’ll to be thinking about my next blog post or my next tee time or my favorite 80s slow dance songs.

I’ve never had a seminary course on preaching, so I really don’t know anything about what it takes to prepare a good sermon. This list probably only works for me, but at least you’ll know how to keep me awake if I ever visit your church.