Christian Blogs: Developing Your Value Added Proposition
May 26th, 2008 Categories: Christian Blogging Tips
Why should Christians blog anyway? What’s our end game? Are you blogging to spread the news about Jesus, or are you trying to add numbers to your church? Are you trying to liven up your current church website, or is this just a side project to give your Pastor an online presence?
If you’re writing for recreation or to kill time, this post really isn’t for you. I want to focus on those Christian bloggers who are attempting to grow their churches through the anointed application of technology such as blogs and social media (Facebook, Myspace, etc).
What is a value added proposition anyway? Simply put, a value added proposition is your articulation of what makes you better than your competition. In the business world, it’s an answer to the question, “Why should I buy your product (as opposed to buying somebody else’s product, or buying nothing at all).” In the world of Churches and Christian blogs, it’s an answer to a much better question: “Why should I attend your church (as opposed to attending somebody else’s church, or no church at all)?”
Can I answer that question and remain humble? I don’t know, can you? It depends upon your view of provision, grace, and anointing. If you feel as if you are the reason that your church is awesome, you should probably leave this post alone and go find a nice scripture about pride and repentance. If, however, you believe that the Lord has blessed you with certain gifts, talents, and visions for expansion, and that these things are not a product of your awesomeness, but God’s, then we can move forward.
What sets your church apart? Developing a value added proposition is very similar to brainstorming a question and looking for a creative answer. You need to know what your church is good at, and then you need to phrase it in a way so that people will care what you have to say. Sounds harder than it is. The first thing you need to do is ask the above question, “What sets your church apart?” For instance, our church embraces technology, loves worship, has an awesome band, and really thrives in the area of fellowship. When you walk in, you can tell that the people really love one another with the love of Christ. What is your church about?
Now, blog it. Start writing articles that support your value added proposition. For our church, in support of the value added that I talked about above, I might write some articles with titles such as:
- Three Reasons Why You Should Attend Our Monthly Cookout
- Worship: Why You Need It More Than You Think
- Electric Guitars are Not From The Devil
- Love: It’s A Noun and A Verb
The idea, of course, is that when people read our blog about our church they begin to immediately see what we’re about. This should have two effects upon your readership: First, if they have never attended your church, it make make them curious enough to poke in for a visit. Secondly, because they know what to expect when they get there, you should be able to create a much higher rate of return for visitors.
I should say, as a note of caution, that if your value added statement doesn’t accurately reflect what your congregation is about you’re going to come off as phony and weird. People will read your blog, hear your “voice,” and expect it to be consistent with what they see when they walk through your doors. That’s your responsibility.
We Build Blogs
In the blogosphere it can be truly hard to be humble specially when talking about why we’re better than the next.
I’ve found that if I can’t be “the best” I pray to plant the seed or water those who have before me.
Good read though.
Interesting post Jon - and somewhat prophetic. Wait until you see what we are planning for our next leadership meeting…
I can’t wait to see what you’ve got in store. We need to start driving our involvement in the community and bringing people through the doors.