evangelism.marketing.

Evangelism Marketing

The American Marketing Association defines marketing as, “the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large” . Marketing tends to be seen as a creative industry, which includes advertising, distribution and selling. It is also concerned with anticipating the customers' future needs and wants, which are often discovered through research and assessment. Since marketing is dealing with the customer and his/her needs, it must stay relevant, so it is constantly changing and re-inventing its processes according to the times and the culture. I have been taught that you have to know how to sell yourself. Every single person on the face of the planet sells himself or herself every single day somehow. We all have something to sell, or something we want other people to catch on to or like about us. Lets take for example a baby. The cry is the selling point. Either the parent will buy it or reject it. Teens and adults all want to be accepted by other so maybe it is their personality or their idea that they are going to sell to other people. Remember that everyone has something to sell.

Now you may be thinking, how do selling and evangelism go together? In the Bible it says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:19-20). The Bible commands us to go and make disciples. The key words here are go and make. Now I see this as go and sell/market your message (good news) to all nations. Now that we have our command and our target market, let’s look at what it means to make or in other words evangelize.

The word evangelism is defined my Merriam-Webster as, “the winning or revival of personal commitments to Christ” . A spicier version of the definition of evangelism is found on Wikipedia. Here it is defined as, “the intention of most evangelism is to convert those who do not follow the Christian God to Christianity for the purpose of effecting eternal salvation. Evangelism is done in obedience to the Great Commission, a command from Jesus to his disciples to proselytize, according to accounts in the New Testament. Christians who specialize in evangelism are known as evangelists, whether they are in their home communities or acting as missionaries in the field” . Even better is the original Greek definition of the word. Evangelist comes from the Greek word εὐαγγέλιον (transliterated as "euangelion"). The Greek word originally meant a reward for good news given to the messenger (εὔ = "good", ἀγγέλλω = "I bring a message”) and later "good news". Putting all of this together, we have a command to go and make disciple and to do that we must evangelize which means marketing our product, in this case, Christ.

I should not think my knowledge is too limited to teach someone else, if I knew enough to become a Christian I know enough to tell others about it and how I did it. In life, we are advertised many things, concepts, and ideas, but which ones do we really buy into. What have you been hooked on or into buying? I f we know enough to buy something, then we know enough to tell others about it and get them to buy it. This especially goes for if we like the product, idea, or concept and want other to have what we have.

One of the strongest and most effective forms of marketing is word of mouth marketing. If you have a product and like it, you want other people to know about it, so you tell them. Evangelism marketing is an advanced form of word of mouth marketing. Within this realm of evangelism, the particular product is the message of salvation. We as Christians believe so strongly in this product, that we now freely try to convince others to “buy” and use it. Is there an incentive to this whole thing? Of course, seeing those people that we have reached out to become Christians. They now have the hope that we have and that means spending eternity with them one day. Tell me what could be better than that?

Now let me ask you are you willing to be a key influencer? To what extent are you willing to influence? Although together we are the called the body of Christ, we as believes work independently. With this independence, we have the power to influence people’s lives. We are to be so driven in our beliefs in our product (salvation/Christ) that we cannot help but preach in an attempt to convert others.

Evangelism marketing is an interesting concept and there are some important areas that should be looked at more closely in order to be most effective in reaching people. These areas are:

1. Freely share your knowledge.
As I said before; I should not think my knowledge is too limited to teach someone else, if I knew enough to become a Christian I know enough to tell others about it and how I did it. Growing up we learn so much, all of our life experiences are going to be the knowledge we need to lead others to Christ.

2. Make word of mouth networks key.
Many times when there is something going on or a new product is going to be hitting the market, there is a buzz about it. We need to keep our word of mouth evangelism buzzing. Keep it creative and connect it to the people you talk to. Most of all, keep it relevant.

3. Keep the environment and community of believes growing
As more and more people accept Christ through your evangelism, help point them in the right direction to continue the growing process. Regularly meet with them and encourage them in their walk with Christ. Most of all, be that role model and example to them. Relationships are key to being an example. If they trust you, they will usually follow you.

4. Make bite-size chunks
As you continue to evangelize, keep it simple. You do not want to over complicate the message that you are trying to present. You want people to bite and the cookie, which presents the window of opportunity for you to minister to their lives. Keep the method simple, but have fun and be creative at the same time.

5. Create a cause
You have a commitment now to evangelize and to keep the people you have brought to Christ growing. Make them your cause. Think of them as your industry. What can you do personally to make the world, and them your industry better?

God has given us such a great command and has placed an amazing calling on each of our lives. The greatest thing though is that we all have the tools to effectively communicate to a lost and dying world. Look at where we are today with technology. We have come so far in the past twenty years. Computer, cell phone, email, and texting are all common ways of communicating. Social networking is huge now through websites such as facebook, myspace, and twitter just to name a few. Blogging is huge also, a word which is so odd, but yet now s common. It is unreal to think how far we have come. There are so many avenues to reach people on. It is up to use to be creative, open our minds and use the tools and resources that God has given us to evangelize.