{"id":213,"date":"2010-10-05T12:29:04","date_gmt":"2010-10-05T12:29:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/10\/194-marketing-spirituality.html"},"modified":"2010-10-05T12:29:04","modified_gmt":"2010-10-05T12:29:04","slug":"194-marketing-spirituality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/10\/194-marketing-spirituality.html","title":{"rendered":"#194 Marketing spirituality"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-center\" height=\"420\" alt=\"getconnected.JPG\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/105\/import\/marketing\/getconnected.JPG\" width=\"364\" \/><\/span>This is Jim. He could become a member of your church if you play your cards right. So we&#8217;ve done a lot of research to figure out what will make him want to commit to church membership. As an American he&#8217;s already an expert at consuming things so we&#8217;ve figured out how to help him consume spirituality. All of this is in the Bible somewhere. We don&#8217;t have a reference for it, but it doesn&#8217;t really matter because we&#8217;re getting people in the door. Quit dissenting. You&#8217;re trying to tear apart Christ&#8217;s bride.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-center\" height=\"247\" alt=\"jim2.JPG\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/105\/import\/marketing\/jim2.JPG\" width=\"648\" \/><\/span>So what you want to do is get Jim <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2009\/04\/77-getting-plugged-in.html\">plugged in<\/a> so he&#8217;ll become a member and your church will grow. It&#8217;s all about being consumer-friendly. Our market research indicates people are nine times more likely to return to a church that is hip and convenient and affirming. And you have to impress upon them some semblance of community, so try to rally some of that. True community isn&#8217;t always convenient or fun though so that&#8217;s a tough one. We use the natural flavoring theory, like the chemicals they call natural flavors that taste just like the real thing. Jim probably won&#8217;t be able to tell the difference and if he can he won&#8217;t want to stick around, which is just as well because&nbsp;then he&#8217;d&nbsp;ask a lot of questions and wouldn&#8217;t fall in line. So anyway, we&#8217;ve researched what will get people to plug into your church and we are selling it to you, the earnest upwardly-mobile modern congregation. It&#8217;s a few thousand bucks but you&#8217;ll make it back good-measure-pressed-down-shaken-together-running-over style&nbsp;in the lifelong tithes from all those white-collar members you&#8217;ll nab. Blessings!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is Jim. He could become a member of your church if you play your cards right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":208,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marketing"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>#194 Marketing spirituality - Stuff Christian Culture Likes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/10\/194-marketing-spirituality.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"#194 Marketing spirituality - Stuff Christian Culture Likes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is Jim. He could become a member of your church if you play your cards right.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/10\/194-marketing-spirituality.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Stuff Christian Culture Likes\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-10-05T12:29:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/files\/import\/marketing\/getconnected.JPG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Stephanie Drury\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"#194 Marketing spirituality - Stuff Christian Culture Likes","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/10\/194-marketing-spirituality.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"#194 Marketing spirituality - Stuff Christian Culture Likes","og_description":"This is Jim. He could become a member of your church if you play your cards right.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/10\/194-marketing-spirituality.html","og_site_name":"Stuff Christian Culture Likes","article_published_time":"2010-10-05T12:29:04+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/files\/import\/marketing\/getconnected.JPG"}],"author":"Stephanie Drury","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/10\/194-marketing-spirituality.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/10\/194-marketing-spirituality.html","name":"#194 Marketing spirituality - Stuff Christian Culture Likes","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/10\/194-marketing-spirituality.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/10\/194-marketing-spirituality.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/files\/import\/marketing\/getconnected.JPG","datePublished":"2010-10-05T12:29:04+00:00","dateModified":"2010-10-05T12:29:04+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/#\/schema\/person\/1974869182ece66da1803ba10db1593c"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/10\/194-marketing-spirituality.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/10\/194-marketing-spirituality.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/10\/194-marketing-spirituality.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/files\/import\/marketing\/getconnected.JPG","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/files\/import\/marketing\/getconnected.JPG"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/2010\/10\/194-marketing-spirituality.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"#194 Marketing spirituality"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/","name":"Stuff Christian Culture Likes","description":"A Christian Humor Blog with Stephanie Drury","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/#\/schema\/person\/1974869182ece66da1803ba10db1593c","name":"Stephanie Drury","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/bd8\/bd861c4f8f95fc9991f0623bcd8ff413x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/bd8\/bd861c4f8f95fc9991f0623bcd8ff413x96.jpg","caption":"Stephanie Drury"},"description":"At one point or another I've been a willing participant in almost all the things I talk about here. I sort of consider myself an expert on Christian culture as I am a preacher's kid and I'm also married to a preacher's kid.\u00c2\u00a0 Christian culture is funny because it doesn't have much (if anything) to do with Christ himself.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/author\/sdrury"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/208"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stuffchristianculturelikes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}