“Many Christians rightly sense that the church is a marginal factor in the lives of most Americans, and even of many self-identified Christians. Many believe that the church is increasingly irrelevant, that it has failed to keep up with the times, that it no longer addresses people’s perceived needs. For those who name the church’s problems in such terms, marketing philosophy looks like a godsend. These persons look out at the business world and see marketing’s impressive ability to create and to maintain markets around the globe, and they reasonably ask: ‘Might such techniques be used to save the church from slipping into utter irrelevance and oblivion?’

The answer from many quarters seem to be a resounding, ‘Yes!’ Many churches have self-consciously adopted a marketing orientation and have experienced (sometimes remarkable) numeric and programmatic growth…We believe that the issue is not simply whether marketing principles and techniques can be used effectively to draw ‘unchurched’ people to a worship service or to create a support group for men with midlife crises, as commendable as these activities might be. The more fundamental issue concerns the impact a marketing orientation has on the church’s self- understanding and mission. Put as starkly as we know it, the question is, Can the market-driven church remain Christ’s church?” (Kenneson & Street, Selling Out the Church, 1997, p.15-16)