Does online ministry make you feel like a salesman?

Here’s the deal: a lot of basic practices for how to communicate with the broad public are used widely in the world we live in. 

Outside of church, we call those basic practices “marketing.” However, we use many of these practices in any other church or nonprofit. We try to communicate well with our entire congregation. We try to communicate well with our neighborhood.

That is, our churches are doing “marketing,” whether or not we use that word.


I mentioned this once to a pastor, and his response summarizes how many pastors feel: “I don’t want to feel like a salesman.” You see, he conflates marketing with being a (dirty, manipulative) salesman. However, this is a big misunderstanding.

When Doctors Without Borders markets, are they being dirty manipulative salesmen? When Habitat For Humanity does marketing, are they being dirty, manipulative salesmen? No, they are doing good in the world, and they are inviting you to participate. 

That’s the same thing your church does in every sermon: you are inviting people to participate in something good. You are offering people a reminder of the Kingdom, or ways to make things better. You are publicly inviting people to something good. However, Doctors Without Borders and Habitat For Humanity are still using the tools of Marketing (and so is your church). 

So what is a more helpful way to think about communicating online? You’re not selling anything online, any more than you are in a Sunday morning sermon. You’re doing the same thing you do on a Sunday morning. You think your church has something helpful to say, so you want people to hear it! Inevitably, we use tools that some call “marketing” to share that good news. Don’t conflate that word with “being a salesman.”

If you would like to process what this means for your church, schedule a Zoom call with me! Let’s chat about what that means in your church.