Here’s a church marketing lesson from a green bean casserole.
Without the crunchy golden topping on the green bean casserole, you probably wouldn’t eat it — voluntarily.
Some of you might disagree, but I have proof.
In the year 2000, my wife and I attended our church’s potluck Thanksgiving dinner.
I signed up to make green bean casserole. I took this job very seriously. I mixed the green beans, the butter and all of the soupy ingredients together. But when I went to add the topping, I realized that I’d forgotten to buy those particular ingredients.
Oh well.
I decided it was too late to run to the store, so I threw the casserole into the oven.
When my wife came home from work, I plucked my culinary creation from the oven to show her.
“Where’s the topping?” she asked.
“I forgot it, but it’s okay. This stuff tastes great!”
“It might taste good, but it doesn’t look good.”
She was right. No offense to you green bean casserole lovers out there, but a green bean casserole without the crunchy golden topping looks like the aftermath of a Linda Blair exorcism.
When I showed up to the dinner, there were at least 10 other green bean casseroles there — all with crunchy golden toppings. I put mine on the table, determined to prove that it could compete.
No one ate it but me.
It looked that bad.
And no matter how good it tasted, with all of the others on the table, no one was going to eat it.
The church marketing lesson is this:
The Word can stand on its own. But it’s our job to share the Word in an effective way, a way that people want and need to experience it. We’re most effective by the way we live, by the way we interact with others.
People have a choice when it comes to churches. There’s one on every corner.
You love your church. You know they’d love it if they just came by.
What can you do to make sure they give yours a shot?
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