Category Archive

March 3, 2024: The purpose of this study was to determine the historical pre-registration and attendance rates of participants in a group of Seventh-day Adventist evangelistic events, measuring the variance in these rates between different marketing communication channels used. This quantitative research-based essay explored a dataset of pre-registrations and attendance at 119 of these events. It found that people who put forth more effort into the pre-registration process attended at higher rates than those that required lower effort, matching the expectation of Cialdini’s persuasion principle of commitment and consistency. This helps to increase our understanding of how making a commitment to attend through pre-registration varies based on the difficulty of the pre-registration process. By using this data of the registration and attendance rates, church marketing practitioners will be better able to diagnose issues in the marketing funnel and measure how any future modifications to this funnel impact these registration and attendance rates.

December 10, 2023: Uncertainty reduction theory (URT) offers a foundational purpose for church websites: to reduce the uncertainty of potential guests prior to their visiting a church for the first time. URT was originally applied to interpersonal social encounters, making it particularly appropriate to this context, because church is fundamentally a social experience. The purpose of this mixed-method study is to determine the frequency and type of extractive information seeking related to attending a church for the first time, using a convergent design. This study looked at the extractive information seeking behavior of a sample of adult Americans who attended a church’s worship service for the first time in the last 5 years. The research found that about 2/3 of the respondents showed extractive information seeking behavior prior to visiting a church for the first time by researching the church’s website or social media presence. Over half of those demonstrating extractive information seeking behavior decided not to attend a particular church because of what they found or did not find online. The study identified five categories of information sought by first-time church guests: spaciotemporal, culture, doctrine, activities, and other. This research contributes to scholarly understanding of URT by measuring the actual uncertainty reducing, extractive information seeking behavior of individuals prior to attending a church worship service for the first time.

November 26, 2023: Society today is undergoing a radical reorganization driven by cloud computing, big data, the internet of things, and artificial intelligence, the latest instance of new technology driving massive change. The pace of this change requires organizations, including churches, to adapt at a rapid pace to remain relevant and impactful in this new world. This paper reviews current literature on the digital transformation, including an understanding of how scholars today understand what it is. It looks at how businesses are adapting to the digital transformation and the leadership elements required to successfully drive this change. It then considers the implications of the digital transformation for church communication and ministry in a contemporary context, offering support for the hypothesis that churches who embrace the digital transformation will attract and retain young adults at higher rates than churches who do not.

October 8, 2023: In the post-Covid-19 era, people are more isolated than ever, making it even more difficult for pastors and evangelists to establish redemptive relationships with people in the community. The development of parasocial relationships through digital video advertising is proposed as an evangelistic path to reach people where they are. Once established, these parasocial relationships can be leveraged to engage these people in person, leading the relationship to transition to a social one based on two-way communication, which in the context of evangelism is a proven method to help someone embrace religious belief and join a spiritual community of faith. If this methodology is successful, it could unlock new evangelistic channels. It also has the potential to expand parasocial relationship theory to better understand the mechanics leading to a transition from parasocial to social relationship.

August 13, 2023: Channel Complementarity Theory suggests that media consumers use multiple communication channels based on their functional need, rather than choosing a communication medium for its own sake. The literature suggests that the promoting evangelistic events using multiple communication channels should generate a greater response than using a single channel alone. However, research on 1,734 marketing campaigns for evangelistic events between 2017 and 2023 found that campaigns utilizing direct mail, outdoor advertising, and social media advertising combined did not generate more pre-registrations per campaign dollar spent than those campaigns that used just one or two of these communication channels. The research also found that the effectiveness of these campaigns improved significantly after the Covid-19 pandemic, as costs per registration declined across nearly all communication channel categories.

July 7, 2023: While the use of YouTube by evangelical churches exploded during the pandemic, much of this use was directed at members by putting the weekly worship service online. However, the use of YouTube by a church for localized evangelistic purposes remains much more limited. This paper describes the experience of a pastor in Columbia, Missouri, in using YouTube advertising for evangelistic purposes. He created short talking-head videos on evangelistic topics, such as salvation or other biblical concepts, and purchased pre-roll advertising on YouTube to gain views in the geographic area around his church. He then transitioned this advertising into an invitation to an evangelistic series held at his church, and found that not only did his advertising strategy lead to increased attendance by young adults, but it also was a foundation for life change and engagement with the church through membership. The result was an effective method for promoting a pastor, a church, and an evangelistic event that could be used effectively by other churches.

May 12, 2023: Uncertainty Reduction Theory suggests that first-time church guests will visit a church’s website seeking information to decide whether to attend that church. This study of 116 churches in Southwest Washington and Western Oregon identified seven characteristics of church websites that appear to reduce guest uncertainty. Three of these—having a customized website, offering a dedicated page for guests with a prominent link on the home page, and providing an archive of videos of the church’s worship services—correlated with faster church growth.

March 5, 2023: Pacific Union College is a liberal arts college in Northern California. This paper gives a brief history of the institution and its current state, outlines its current online marketing efforts, describes the benefits of an online marketing plan covering eight marketing channels, and proposes three digital analytics initiatives that could be implemented to drive new student enrollment, retention of current students, and increased financial support from donors.

May 15, 2022: This paper considers cognitive dissonance theory in the context of proclamational evangelistic methods in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. An illustrative case study is presented of one such evangelistic series, highlighting specific practices that appear to manage cognitive dissonance to induce changes in belief and behavior among evangelistic prospects. Implications for the innovation of evangelistic methods are also explored, along with questions for further research.