From time to time the subject of advertising comes up in our church. We do almost no paid advertising. We don’t have billboards. We don’t have television commercials. We don’t run spots on the radio. We don’t have display ads in the newspaper. We don’t even have expanded listings in the yellow pages. The reason for this lack of advertising is twofold. First of all we don’t have the funds to run ad campaigns the way that businesses do. An effective campaign can cost thousands of dollars in a few days. We spend hundreds per year. For the most part we don’t seem to need advertising. The most effective way to get the word out about our church is through the friendships and associations of our members. We do have a web site and some people find us through the Internet, but most of our visitors find us because someone associated with the church invited them to come.

Still, there are members that would like to see us advertise. They see ads placed by other churches in the paper and wish that their church had an ad. They see other churches featured on electronic billboards and wish their church were so featured.

Around the first of November we will solicit donations for Advent and Christmas advertisements in the newspaper. The ads that receive sponsors will be run. Those that have no sponsor will be skipped. I have been working to come up with a good design for the advertisements, but I confess that I am skeptical. I don’t believe that there is much benefit to advertising in the newspaper. The target audience for new members for our church mostly doesn’t subscribe to the newspaper and will never see the ads. Were we to add online advertising in the newspaper’s electronic version, we might have a few of our ads viewed by the people we are trying to reach, but it seems unlikely that there is a benefit that offsets the cost of simple newspaper display ads.

But that is just my opinion. And I don’t really know much about advertising at all. I have worked in radio and at a newspaper. I have written and read scripts for radio ads and I have designed newspaper advertising. I understand the basics of production. But I know nothing of what really works.

There are people who study the effectiveness of various forms of advertising, but the results vary. People do respond to ads. Advertising does have an impact, but how it all works is rather complex. Sometimes it is more effective to simply have more advertising instead of better advertising. Sometimes having just the right advertisement leaves a lasting impression.

Recently, I caught a story about a study that was done at Cologne University in Germany on the Internet recently. The study found that advertisements shown in movie theaters are less effective if people are eating popcorn while they are watching the ads. Previous studies about eating and memory are mixed. Chewing improves blood flow to the brain and does raise alertness. However a study at Cardiff University demonstrated that people’s ability to recall lists in a specific order was impaired by chewing gum. In the Cologne study people were invited to watch a movie preceded by a series of advertisements. Half of the people in the study were given popcorn, half had none. They were shown commercials that were already in use in movie houses, but which were for products that were unfamiliar to the particular audience. A week later study participants were asked to rate a series of products. The people who had no popcorn showed preferences for the products advertised. The people who ate popcorn did not. The study was repeated with similar results.

I don’t know what this has to do with churches and whether or not it is effective to invest our limited resources in advertising, but it might suggest that we shouldn’t serve popcorn while the Scriptures are being read.

On the other hand, eating a small piece of bread in the context of worship can be a memorable experience.

We have started a practice that is new to our congregation. When we serve communion at a time that the children are in church school, we take the leftover bread from communion and share it with the children. Yesterday the preschool children were sitting in a circle. They had a prayer together and passed the plate. The pieces of bread are very small, so one of the children asked if they could have a second piece. The answer was affirmative. They began to comment on how good the bread was and soon they were grabbing handfuls of the bread. It was plain bread that normally wouldn’t have appealed to the children, but the context and the tiny cubes somehow make it seem very good to them. I wasn’t there to witness the children and the bread, but I heard the story and it immediately made me think of Psalm 34: “Taste and see that the Lord is good!”

The reality is that church is not a product to sell. It is the experience of community. Sometimes it takes a lot of different experiences at church to form a lasting impression. It takes repetition to develop spiritual disciplines. It takes an investment of one’s self to become known. The commitment to participation in a religious community is inherently different than the decision to purchase a product or service.

Furthermore, I don’t see religion as a competitive business. We know that there are many different churches in town. While we work hard to make ours a faithful community, we know that other churches are also faithful. Our prayer for people is that they would find the church that is right for them for a particular part of their faith journey, not that our church would somehow become the right community for everyone. There is no “one size fits all” in religion.

So we will probably receive donations for the advertisements. We will probably run them. Some people will likely be happy with how we look in the paper. Others might not notice. I’m content to let others put their energy into the advertising. My goal is to have a good and meaningful experience for folks when they come to our church.

Wow! I’m really hungry for some popcorn . . .

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