Okay, content marketing might be a new term for you. Here's a definition from Joe Pulizzi, Founder of the Content Marketing Institute:

"Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience—and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action."

Two Observations About the Church and Content Marketing

Let me make two observations about the relationship between the church and content marketing.

First, I believe that the church was the first great content marketing institution. How do I know? As I pointed out in my book, Rewired, the early church used papyrus for publishing, the Roman roads for traveling and the Greek language (almost universally used for written communication) to get the good news about Jesus out to the ends of the earth.

Then, the church used the printing press to distribute Bibles. The Bible was the first book printed on one and is the most widely published book in history for a reason.

My second observation isn't quite so positive: We've fallen behind.

Where once the church was innovative in finding new means of spreading the gospel, now we're skeptical of technology, scared to engage the world around us and our view of secular culture is flawed. Instead of creating culture, we're hiding from it.

So I believe we ought to get back to our roots and become leaders in the field of content marketing, not to combat everything secular, but rather to influence the secular with sacred truth.

Two Big Truths We Need to Believe In

Let's acknowledge two other big truths about content marketing and the church.

1. We have the world's best content.

We've been handed the very revelation of God's mind and heart in the form of the Bible, the written Word. It's printed and bound in leather, sold in dozens of translations and study editions and available in digital formats.

LifeChurch.tv has done an amazing, kingdom-minded thing with the development of YouVersion, which puts the Bible into dozens of languages, socializes it and spreads it all over the world. They not only have the Bible app (which is another positive), but they've done probably the most aggressive work in terms of marketing it.

We can do even better getting the word out about the Word. LifeChurch.tv and a handful of online Bible publishers can't do it alone. We need to tell everybody about the availability of eternal truth.

But it isn't just the Bible. We've preached hundreds of thousands of great sermons, produced amazingly creative videos, written tens of thousands of valuable books and authored too many devotional works to count.

We have the content with which to fill the world with encouraging, life-saving truth.

2. Our message is worth marketing.

You wanna argue about whether the church should be in the marketing business or not? You'll have to argue with someone else, cause I ain't got time f'dat.

Every church leader I know is a marketer. And those who are opposed to using marketing in the church are usually some of the best at marketing their anti-marketing messages.

Maybe we just need better jargon. Know what marketing really is?

Marketing is getting the word out.

That's it. It's spreading the message. And I'm pretty sure we were commissioned to get the word out (marketing) about the truth and saving grace of Jesus (message).

So, how can the church do better with its content marketing? Here are a dozen from-the-hip ideas:

• Use social media in supernaturally natural ways (point people to Jesus in natural, relational ways).
• Remove the imaginary barrier between the sacred and the secular.
• Don't be awkwardly religious all the time.
• Be personal. Share your life in pictures, videos and status updates. Not everything, but some highlights.
• Build friendships and relationships.
• Sprinkle in divine truth.
• Be funny in appropriate ways. Humor is relatable and Jesus-like.
• Break your sermons into easily shareable portions—blog posts, tweets, images with quotes and other types of post.
• Point back sometimes to ancient things—old hymns, creeds and quotes from leaders already in heaven.
• Demonstrate the relevance of Scripture to everyday issues and problems.
• Get artistic. Use your creative gifts to adorn God's truth in beautiful ways.
• Tell stories of life change.

Oh, and get better at this.

Read great books about content marketing.

Attend events that educate about content marketing.

Get training in better communication skills.

Use widely available tools and resources.

Our message never changes. Ever. But our methods of marketing it will change with every generation. And this generation needs Jesus.

So let's do this.

Brandon Cox has been a pastor since he was 19 and has served churches, large and small, including serving as a pastor at Saddleback Church. Currently, he is planting a purpose-driven church in northwest Arkansas. He also serves as editor of pastors.com and Rick Warren's Pastors' Toolbox, and authors a top 100 blog for church leaders as well as a blog about men's issues, a blog about blogging and a blog about social media.

This article originally appeared at rewiredsocial.com.

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