c. 2008 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) In an era of declining attendance, churches across the country are scrambling to embrace modern marketing tools: Web sites, podcasts, billboards and the like. But a backlash is forming, as critics argue that while these megachurch-inspired tactics fill the pews, they sometimes lead to a weakened Christianity and ecclesiastical bait-and-switch.

At the center of the debate is the Web site ChurchMarketingSucks.com. With more than 40,000 unique visitors per month, the site aims to “frustrate, educate and motivate” churches into communicating effectively in a religious environment. But it’s also a little tongue-in-cheek.

“If churches were doing what they’re supposed to be doing, they wouldn’t need advertising,” says the site’s founder Brad Abare. He contends that if churches were more active in the community and addressing its needs, they would grow naturally from the original form of marketing _ word of mouth.

Hundreds of megachurches have sprung up in recent decades, marked by at least 2,000 members each, charismatic preachers, and a generally evangelical, nondenominational tone.

While mainline Protestant denominations are shrinking, evangelical churches are booming, in what some call this century’s first Great Awakening. Growth has a higher purpose for megachurches; to spread the faith they often employ large-scale advertising campaigns that permeate their community.

Director of communications for the evangelical Foursquare Church in Los Angeles, Abare says many smaller churches are ineffectively copying the marketing tools of megachurches, using bland or misleading advertisements to appeal to a broad base. “There’s too much marketing that is not being authentic in its approach _ it’s trying to sell something that doesn’t exist,” he says.

As examples, Abare points to churches with older congregations that say they cater to the whole family, or churches that use hip advertising to attract youth, when the Sunday service is traditional.

“People can cut through that pretty quickly. Advertising should come once you figure out who you are as a church and why you belong.” In response, Abare’s site lists more than 40 companies, nonprofits and Web sites that can help churches communicate individualistically.

When the average American sees as many as 3,000 advertisements per day, churches don’t know how to brand themselves, says Phil Cooke, media consultant and author of “Branding Faith: Why Some Churches and Nonprofits Impact Culture and Others Don’t.”

To fix this, Cooke says that churches need to focus on how they’re different, and preach to their niches. “Jesus didn’t reach everybody. There were people who walked away from Jesus, and you are not going to reach everybody.”

Cooke says that megachurches have thrived because they can tell a good story, which has always been the strength of Christianity.

With a comprehensive, cohesive media package, they have learned to compete in the new corporate-driven America and developed a branded Christendom.

Smaller churches can learn from this, but need to find their own substance and not just mimic, he says. “Christians worship the Creator, and yet we copy so much,” he says.

But James Twitchell, professor at the University of Florida and author of “Shopping for God: How Christianity Went from In Your Heart to In Your Face,” says that churches’ adoption of marketing fads will actually hurt in the long run. He calls megachurches the “triumph of the generic,” and says that by copying that approach, mainline Protestant churches are speeding their own numerical decline.

“One of the reasons we’re having an `awakening’ is because megachurches have found an innovation in marketing, but they can go up in smoke in a minute,” he says. “It’s not that these churches are offering a different product, it’s that they’re offering a different sensation through gross consumption.”

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