Advertising isn’t the devil. In fact, it may be the most faithful, radical, Jesus-y thing your church can do.

By Lenora Rand

If you want to make a progressive Christian pastor, board member, or elder squirm, try this: drop the word advertising into a church council meeting. Or worse, refer to your church as a brand. You’ll find people suddenly fascinated by the floor tiles or changing the subject by asking who will be bringing the potato salad to the next potluck. 

Photo by Egidijus Bielskis on Unsplash

I still remember being introduced to someone during a fellowship hour about ten years ago at a lovely, progressive, justice-centered, “we love everyone” kind of church, when this person (who worked for a nonprofit, if I’m remembering correctly) asked me what I did for a living. I told them I worked in advertising at a big firm in the city.  There was an actual gasp, a sharp intake of breath you could hear across the room, as if I’d just told them I killed baby goats and sold the blood for satanic rituals. 

Since Mylene and I started SmallGood 8 years ago, among the variety of nonprofits we’ve worked with, we’ve been brought in to help several progressive, inclusive churches with their branding, marketing, and websites. The people who hired us have all been very positive about the work we’ve done for them and about the experience of working with us. However, sometimes they didn’t like to refer to what we were doing for them as “advertising,” especially when they were reporting back to their congregations. They preferred something more along the lines of “communications” or “outreach.” And we understood that. 

“Advertising” makes a lot of folks cringe. And rightfully so.

As a progressive, LGBTQ+ inclusive, justice-focused church, you want to be seen as authentic, and advertising can feel like anything but. I mean, have you bought anything advertised on social media lately? 

You carry a healthy suspicion of consumer culture, and doing marketing of any kind can feel like a betrayal of your core values.

You don’t want to be seen as trying to “out-advertise” the church down the street or even subtly suggesting that you’re better than them.

You think “Won’t people come to our church just because we are doing good things in the world?”

But, here’s the reality: Christianity in this country today is largely being defined by those who see their faith as a call to exclusion and division.

Right now, the public face of Christianity is being shaped less by communities of justice and inclusion, and more by the loudest voices of Christian Nationalism.

Take the recent memorial for Charlie Kirk: tens of thousands gathered in a stadium, millions more watched online, and some commenters called it “the most Christian thing” they’d ever seen. For hours, speakers  “lifted up the name of Jesus.”

As Pastor Derek Penwell, Senior Minister at Louisville’s Douglass Blvd. Christian Church recently said on Facebook, on the surface, that might sound good. But just saying “Jesus” loudly, repeatedly, and in front of 95,000 people doesn’t automatically make an act Christian.

When faith is used to sanctify political power, exclusion, and nationalism, it obscures the Jesus who fed the hungry, welcomed outcasts, and confronted empire. The danger is that this kind of spectacle becomes the public definition of Christianity. Millions see it and assume

faith is inherently exclusionary. That God sides with the rich and powerful. That God is in the business of “making America great again.” 

The mega-funded national advertising campaign He Gets Us is another voice shaping the public perception of Jesus for many people. This large-scale, multi-year effort to promote Jesus and his teachings is funded in part by David Green, the founder of the craft store chain Hobby Lobby. The association with Hobby Lobby and its owner has created controversy because of the company's history of conservative stances and opposition to policies like transgender rights and birth control coverage. 

The Christianity this campaign represents is stripped of systemic justice, detached from liberation, and co-opted for political ends. As Christian Ethics Today has asserted,  the ultimate goal of the “He Gets Us” campaign is really all about collecting data and feeding that information to conservative political groups.

That’s why telling your story matters. If progressive voices remain quiet, the loudest voices defining Christianity will be the ones that do not represent you—or the Gospel you proclaim.

It’s time to make visible a Christianity that is compassionate, inclusive, and justice-seeking. Again.

Before you picture me suggesting that your church hire a jingle writer and join the Family Auto Mart car dealership in making some, shall we say, memorable TV ads, let’s back up.

The truth is, Jesus was one of the best communicators of all time. Jesus showed up where people were, told stories, and came up with catchy phrases that were sticky, memorable, and repeatable. And when Jesus healed people and then told them not to tell anyone, he was basically being one of the original advertising geniuses… because secrets are powerful in marketing – they create intrigue and make people want to know more, as anyone who’s ever waited for a new iPhone to launch will tell you. 

The apostles did some “getting the word out” of their own—traveling from city to city speaking in the public square (aka “event marketing”), writing letters (perhaps the original email blasts?), telling anyone who would listen about the good news. This was advertising not as manipulation, but as amplification. 

It was about sharing the truth of what had happened and was happening to them, how it was making a difference, and letting people know that the experience was available to them as well. 

Photo by chris robert on Unsplash

When your church started, the building was probably advertising enough. 

When many mainline churches were founded and built, the church building itself—with its steeple, stained glass, and prime corner lot—was a kind of billboard. The church name carried weight, and your denominational affiliation signaled what you were about. 

Back then, going to church was assumed, a cultural norm for the majority of people in America. 

But over the last fifty+ years, that landscape has shifted dramatically. Sunday morning is no longer reserved for churchgoing. More and more people have joined the “nones” and the “spiritual but not religious” crowd. Church trauma has driven a lot of people away. 

Add to that the rise of media-savvy megachurches with massive marketing budgets, and mainline progressive congregations can easily feel invisible. It’s not that your message is less relevant—it’s that the cultural assumptions that once carried you no longer exist. Which means you can’t rely on your building or denominational logo to do the work of invitation anymore. Or to overcome all the other baggage words like “church” carry.

Why Advertising Is Crucial For Your Church.  Right Now.

We all hear a lot about a Christianity that is hostile to LGBTQ folks, anti-science, anti-women, anti-social justice, anti-immigration, pro-Christian nationalism, and anti-intellectual.

But what if you belong to a church that’s the opposite of that? You affirm LGBTQ+ siblings, you care about climate justice, you advocate for and support immigrants, you wrestle honestly with Scripture, you’re working on overcoming racism in yourselves, and in the systems around you. 

You are living, breathing proof that Christianity can be compassionate, inclusive, and justice-seeking.

But, sadly, many, maybe most, people in your community have no idea you exist. Or if they do know you exist, they have no idea that you’re different from what they expect Christians to be about, or how you might offer anything they actually need.  

This is why advertising matters. Not because you need to boost your “numbers,” “pack a pew,” or “get butts in seats,” but because there are people in your neighborhood right now who are longing for exactly what you offer. 

Single parents who need community. 

LGBTQ teens who need to know they are beloved. 

Exhausted activists who need spiritual grounding. 

Families who want their kids to grow up learning love, not fear.

If they don’t know you’re there, they’ll assume there’s no church for them. Advertising makes sure that doesn’t happen. 

Advertising Doesn’t Have to Be Horrifying.

Okay, so how can you do this without selling your souls? Here are a few things we’ve helped the churches we work with do:

• Tell stories. Share real stories of how your church is making a difference. A photo of your community garden with a caption about feeding neighbors, a video of your congregation handing out water at a protest march or showing up with messages of love and support at a Pride parade can speak volumes.

• Proclaim your truth. Taking a stand on local and national issues, being a voice for “the least of these,” and offering a fresh perspective on Jesus and the call to discipleship can be good news to those who are looking for a faith community where love and justice are central.  

• Lean into your weirdness. If your church is quirky, say so. If you worship with banjos, compost bins, and rainbow flags, let that shine. Your uniqueness is the best advertising strategy you’ve got.

• Use platforms people actually see. A simple Facebook or Instagram ad, geo-targeted to your neighborhood, can reach thousands of people for less than the cost of a new hymnal. A postcard with your unique message can land in the mailboxes of people who might never search “progressive church near me” on Google. 

  And for those who might be searching for “progressive church near me,” you may even want to consider Google ads. Using paid search on Google, we helped one of the churches we worked with identify the aspects of their church offerings that community members were searching for most. In this church’s area, it turned out to be “family-friendly and LGBTQ inclusive.”

  
  

• Invest in your website. For most people, your website will be their first experience of your church. What is it saying about you? Does it look stuffy or outdated? Is it full of insider language or Christian jargon that will make newcomers feel excluded? Or does it clearly communicate what you care most about—your commitments, your personality, your worship vibe, the ways you put God’s love into action? A good website doesn’t need to be flashy, but it should help someone imagine what it would feel like to show up on a Sunday morning—and why it might matter for their life.

• See it as an invitation, not a sales pitch. You’re not selling salvation. Or easy answers. You’re not competing with the other churches in town. You’re extending an invitation: “Hey, if you’re looking for community and justice and love, we’re here.”

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash

Working on your church’s marketing can actually be clarifying and empowering. 

When we work with a church, one of the first things we do is help the key stakeholders (pastors, members of the elder board, and congregation) articulate what they are truly about. We guide them through a short but focused process that allows them to see and name what makes them different, what they’re passionate about, what they get most excited about as a community, and what their true personality is.

This process has proven to be enlightening, game-changing, and incredibly valuable for these churches. It’s helped them engage in conversations they may have needed to have for a long time and allowed them to see, appreciate, and begin to talk about what they uniquely bring to the world and why it matters, in a way they never have before. 

Yes, advertising carries risks. But the risks of not advertising are far greater. 

The public narrative about Christianity will continue to be dominated by voices that don’t represent your beliefs, unless there are other narratives, from churches like yours, that are out there.  

Advertising doesn’t need to be about half-truths and manipulation. It can also simply be about your church saying, with humility and joy: “We’re here for you. Whoever you are. You are not alone.”

You can do it, not because you want to fill pews, but because the world is aching for communities of love and justice, and you’ve got one.

And if you don’t want to call it advertising, that’s ok with us. You can call it “telling your story so people will hear.” You can call it “sharing who you really are.” You can call it “communicating your good news.” You can even call it “community-building,” because in truth, that’s what it does. 

If you want to keep thinking of it as the devil, feel free. But if so, you might want to take a lesson from one of the ‘70s Christian rockers,  Larry Norman, and his most famous song, and ask yourself: 

“Why should the devil have all the good advertising?”