miletwo::network

Much confusion exists in online marketing circles on the value of social networking tools, sites, blogs, yada, yada, yada… which begs the question, “How do you build community?” Seriously. So, the social scientist quadrant of my brain takes over and I begin to digg into this deli.icio.us question and see what the rest of the online community has to say. I’m sure if the information is out there, by now I must have reddit.

In the wake of the recent slide, no… avalanche of real estate price drops I’ve begun to wonder what effect the current economy might have on church vitality, growth, and attendance. The question: “To what degree does the failing economy affect church marketing, attendance and giving, and is there anything we should be doing in response?”

Let’s look at the various factors below and see if I’m just a nut job or if there’s something here we should be thinking about.

Attendance

This one has been hard to locate any statistical data for but I wonder, when hard times hit do more people go to church or find faith? If so, it’s reasonable to assume we should be gearing up for an onslaught! I know from personal experience that there are many factors that drive people to the savior. Many times a personal awakening is triggered by unfortunate circumstances so be ready with the gauze and bandages. If you read this article and are a pastor at a church, let me know if you’ve seen attendance numbers affected by economy.

I read today in Seth Godin’s blog about a new site by the folks at Squidoo who just built a promotional tool that lets you become the central expert on all things in your area. Mayor of your zip code is a way to start a discussion group/info page about what’s happening in your slice of the world. You become the single relevant source of information on your community. That said, if you only spend a few minutes on it and then move on, it’ll fail. But, if you were to budget a significant portion of your time or those in your organization on working on your page, what do you think would show up in Google searches? What sort of interactions would you start having with people thinking about your little part of the world?