Church Executive Magazine - July 2005 - Lessons in branding:

If you want to be more effective in establishing your “brand” and reaching your community for Jesus, I submit to you that the marketplace has some of the best practical ideas. Why not learn from the experiences of Fortune 500 companies? There is a whole world of strategy and purpose behind the building of a brand in the marketplace, so why not glean from it?

If a church is an institution just like a business, and if the goal is to build huge church organizations just like Fortune 500 companies, then this is an excellent article and a magazine like Church Executive is very helpful and very useful. But if the Church is the bride of Christ, and if the church is a living body, and if the head of the church is Christ, and if we’re all a royal priesthood, and if we’re to devote ourselves “to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, the breaking of bread and of prayer” (Acts 2:42), then a magazine like Church Executive and a list of ten strategies to build a more effective brand miss the point in a pretty staggering way.

(hat tip: Church Marketing Sucks)