CMU Graduation Commencement Bonus

🎓 In this bonus episode, you’re invited to listen in as John-Erik Moseler gives the first-ever Church Marketing University Commencement Speech!

Even if your not a part of CMU, you’ll love hearing from John-Erik as he shares an incredible perspective on church marketing.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, or Spotify.

Did you leave the CMU Podcast a review? Reach out because I have a special surprise for you!

Answers These Questions

1. What should you be thinking about as you launch your churches/ministries into reaching more people for Christ every week?
2. What is marketing truly about? (Hint — it’s not about communicating or reaching a target audience.) 
3. What’s the charge to church marketers in general and CMU graduates specifically?

Included in this episode:

Church Marketing- How do people get it so wrong?

It’s natural for people to push back against church marketing. Why? Marketing uses war language (campaigns, targets, etc).  We’re supposed to be different, so why are we listening to the world?

Why wouldn’t we want to better connect and communicate with people in our community?
The Church tends to be 10-15 years behind corporate America.  We have the most compelling message, best story, and the best product.  We don’t have to use “tricks” like everyone else!

Here’s the deal: it doesn’t matter what you’re marketing, everyone’s favorite product is hope.  When somebody buys something, they’re not buying a product, they’re buying a future version of themselves — to be healthier, happier, better… — it’s going to do something for me

Storytelling

All great stories follow a similar story arc.  Our story is no different.  It starts with “once upon a time…”

It starts with The Garden of Eden.

Everything was OK, and then something happened — the inciting incident — In this case, it was betrayal, or the Fall of Mankind.

Then, we move to act 2: The Rescue — something to resolve the inciting incident (plot twist) “For God so loved the world he sent His son …”  And it ends with “happily ever after,” or the Salvation of Mankind.

We have the best story the world has ever known, so why aren’t we leading the way? Stop trying to do what the world does for products and start leading the marketing world by focusing on relationships. Marketing is all about relationships, all about people about being thoughtful.  It’s not about tactics and strategy and campaigns.  It’s about people connecting with a God who loves them so incredibly much.

Partnering with God

What is the lens by which you are going to view the world now?  How do you reconcile all these things?

Here’s a perspective shift: you’re not the word, you’re the VOICE of the Word (we don’t need to explain Scripture, it explains itself).  You have to develop your voice — prepare the way for that Word.

The relationship God wants from you is not to do His bidding — didn’t create you just so you’d be the “indentured help”
He wants to partner with you.  What was the first thing God assigned us? Build a church? Create a program/pageant? No.  It was to name, to partner with Him in His work of creation.

Don’t just talk about a relationship with God … emotionally connect with him — show who God is by how you behave and offer hope to those around you.

But let’s talk more about naming: Genesis 1:2 is the First Mission Trip.  God creates the animals, Adam names them.
You’re continuing to be invited by God to help him create the world.

This lens should be the CMU standard.  Understand yours is a calling, an anointing, a request from God to join Him in his work.  The power of life and death is in the tongue — we can create a world in someone or we can destroy their world with our words.

The “First Graduation”

The First Graduation can be found in Exodus 35.  In the midst of slavery and captivity, God rescued.

Most people today are still in a prison, one they build with their salary.  They’re still building bricks for Pharaoh.  But for those of us who have been set free, what is being built is the new sacred space (Tabernacle).  It’s a place that contains the presence of God.

We need sacred spaces today — they can be created online!  You are being sent out like the early church — it’s not an occupation., it’s a calling.  And just like the exodus wasn’t the end of the work, it was the beginning of the work, this graduation is just the beginning.

The people anointed were those who used tools to communicate and gather the people together — nothing has changed since then, we still do this as marketers.

Who were the first people to be anointed after leaving Egypt?
The artisans of the temple — the craftsmen; those who built the first Tabernacle (the presence of God) — Ex. 35:31

When you ask questions about the tools, do you even know what you’re building? Tools don’t matter!  Everything that CMU does replicates this first biblical calling — Skill, ability, and knowledge in all kinds of crafts.

Create community

People don’t want communication, they want community.
It’s about conversation — not communications.  It’s about hope.  We’re creating a place where people can be supported, gather and grow.  Every human being wants to believe in something and belong to something.  That’s our calling- to minister to this most basic of human needs, that God has placed in our hearts.

Methods aren’t the most important part

Don’t be so tied to the tools that you focus on the “how” instead of the “why.”  Your job as a craftsman you have put in the work and you have the knowledge, skill and ability — what are you crafting? Remember, from the beginning?  You’re not the Word, but you’re partnering with God to craft the voice.

What you’re doing is not the communications strategy.  You’re creating conversation.

You’re creating community.

You’re creating a culture.  In the things you celebrate and the stories you tell.

You’re creating the center of community, a place where everyone is free to gather.

Inspired by this talk?  Here’s How to Connect with CMU-

Join the Church Marketers Facebook Group 

If you’d like to become a part of CMU, head over to Church Marketing University and apply for a scholarship.

Tell us what you think — Leave a Podcast review! And let us know, there may be something in store if you do.  😉

For more of John-Erik, check out the CMU Mindset Course

John-Erik Moseler Chief Adventure Officer at Adventure Social

I Help My Friends Change the 🌎 World! Adventure Dad 🚀 Growth Hacker 🌱 Geek read more