Wherever you are, you cannot escape the capture of the moonbeam.

As you look towards the moon on a clear night, you become the centre of its gleaming light. You are the one literally at the centre! No-one in this world is at the centre of the light shining on you! You are extremely special!

God is signalling you out! You are the special one! You are the full focus of God’s attention – you are it!

Everyone is special in the eyes of God. The moonlight shows this more than anything else. Wherever you move, no matter the speed, no matter the time, you are always at the centre! You cannot escape this centeredness. No matter how hard you try, you are always at the centre of the moonbeam – centre of God’s attention!

This is a very special invitation to realise the reality of God and the place you play in this loving relationship.

The same reality occurs when under the influence of a direct ray of sunlight. (We believe it is best not to look at this most powerful beam, due to the impact it may have on our eyes and our vision.) Yet, this awesome sunbeam, with all its power and heat and intensity, says much to us about God and God’s relationship with each individual person.

God loves us so much that he wants us to respond to his loving kindness, compassion and forgiveness.

If we can find God in the warmth and the power of the sun, or the gentle peacefulness and quiet of the moon-bean, we are open to experience the real God in our lives!

The moon-beam and the silence of the light gleaming over the sea towards us, as we sit quietly on the seashore, is a holy, Godly experience. We need to be open to experience our God in the silence, quietness and gentleness of the moon-beam.

The 'Follow the moon beam – everyone is special in God’s eyes' blog post written by Bryan Foster, author of Church Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (2nd ed), - the paperback and ebook manual for Church communications and marketing personnel - 304 pages of easy to read and implement summarized points, which allow for a considerably large number of quality stategies and examples to be detailed and available for church marketing personnel - with copyright remaining GDPL. Book available from Amazon.com and Createspace.com

Free, or Inexpensive

A successful church and parish marketing plan and budget will need to incorporate most of the top ten free church marketing strategies if it is to be successful. The top 10 strategies can be free, or at least relatively inexpensive, depending on the church / parish’s present arrangements.

By effectively using the media and the church / parish website, there should be little expense activating these top 10 strategies, especially when the digital option is the primary method used, instead of hardcopies. If it can assumed that the parish has a website, which can be managed by the parish personnel, as well as a front signboard and a good digital camera, then these strategies can be implemented for free or little expense.

The first strategy is in itself free, yet is also reliant upon a number of other key strategies to be implemented successfully – ‘Word of Mouth’.

Top 10 Free Church / Prish Marketing Strategies

1.    Word of Mouth
2.    Quality Preaching, Engaging Liturgies and Active Pastoral Care / Social Justice / Youth Programs
3.    Social Networking Sites e.g. Facebook, Twitter, You Tube
4.    Professionalism of priests and staff in action and appearance
5.    Church / Parish Website and Blogs
6.    Use of the Media - both traditional and contemporary – including editorial, images  and advertising
7.    Information Sessions - night and day times – including faith / theological education, open days, prayer sessions...
8.    Newsletters and Flyers - digital (hardcopy where needed)
9.    Front Signboard
10.  Cross Information (within the parish e.g including through the school/s)

The number 1 strategy, ‘Word of Mouth’, is dependent on those espousing various views about the church / parish being well informed. To do this, the next 9 strategies have an important role to play.

The church / parish needs:

•    to have a high quality liturgical, prayerful and pastoral life, along with an openness to meet the needs of all parishioners
•    acknowledgement of the place of social media in today’s digital world
•    an easy to use professional website
•    the ability to engage the local media so that the good stories are told to the whole community, and even the negative stories being told with the church's’s professional approach for solutions being seen in a positive light,
•    openness to various visits to the parish
•    the acceptance of the place of the digital flyers and newsletters.

Conclusion

Free key strategies are often the best approaches to marketing your church / parish. When there is a professional website and the parish community has a positive attitude toward the parish and what it offers, along with what the digital age can offer, then a free, or relatively inexpensive, church / parish marketing plan is possible. This approach can also work when the attitude of the community is not as high – however, there may need to be a need for various forms of paid advertising to counteract such negativity. The best church / parish marketing plan would incorporate most of the free top 10 strategies for marketing your church or parish.

 The 'Top 10 Free (or Inexpensive) Church and Parish Marketing Strategies' blog post written by Bryan Foster, author of Church Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (2nd ed), - the paperback and ebook manual for Church communications and marketing personnel - 304 pages of easy to read and implement summarized points, which allow for a considerably large number of quality stategies and examples to be detailed and available for church marketing personnel - with copyright remaining GDPL. Book available from Amazon.com and Createspace.com

Let's keep it simple. From my experience there are a number of classic and contemporary methods to market your church or parish. These should be at the forefront of any successful church / parish marketing plan. A number of these are free or relatively inexpensive. The number 1 method though is ‘Word of Mouth’ is free!

Now this may seem quite obvious and simple to many, that the number one strategy is word of mouth, unfortunately it can be anything but that. Word of mouth requires the great majority of people to be speaking positively about your parish. This not only includes those directly in the parish community e.g. staff and parishioners, but also those in the wider community who may influence those within and without of the parish. This would include: others directly associated with the parish e.g. suppliers of goods, professionals e.g. those charged with the financial guidance and auditing, architects and engineers of the building plan, people various associations, committes and boards, etc.

Hence, these people need to be fully informed and communicated with, concerning all the events and happenings within the church /parish. This includes the positive and the negative.

Why the negative you may ask? If the church / parish is run effectively it will have policies and procedures to deal with most, if not all, circumstances it may face. When people within and without the parish see that it is dealing with those negative aspects in a professional, caring and effective way, they will more than likely offer their support. For many of these people they will go much further and espouse how wonderful the parish is in the way that it deals with negative issues. This can be a very effective method, overall.

Once this strategy is accepted as the primary means to market a church or parish, it then becomes evident that the next challenge is to select numerous forms of communication and a number of strategies, which are going to be needed for the ‘word of mouth’ strategy to be fully informed and hence, successful.

The 'Word of Mouth - the #1 Strategy for Church and Parish Marketing' blog post written by Bryan Foster, author of Church Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (2nd ed), - the paperback and ebook manual for Church communications and marketing personnel - 304 pages of easy to read and implement summarized points, which allow for a considerably large number of quality stategies and examples to be detailed and available for church marketing personnel - with copyright remaining GDPL. Book available from Amazon.com and Createspace.com

Sharing his church marketing plans and strategies for marketing within the Catholic Church for almost 20 years has been a passion for Bryan Foster .

Recently he published the next editions in his popular church and school marketing series:

'Church Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (2nd ed)', 2011 as a paperback
'School Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (3rd ed)', 2011 as a paperback.

These books published as both paperbacks and e-books add a whole new dimension from his experiences with digital marketing. This is combined with a complete update of the regular contemporary and traditional school marketing strategies.

These e-books are available from both this School and Church Marketing online website and from Amazon.com. Amazon.com also has these as paperbacks as well: .

Church Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (2nd ed), 2011

School Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (3rd ed)', 2011

His leadership roles within the Church include:

•   South Coast Deanery Pastoral Council, Chair
•   St Mary's Parish Pastoral Council, Coomera, Chair
•   Surfers Paradise Parish Pastoral Council, Surfers Paradise, Secretary
•   St Kevin’s School, Parents and Friends Association, Benowa, President.

All of these are on the Gold Coast, Australia. This is arguably the harshest region to 'market' churches in Australia. It is a very secular based city - being the tourist capital of Australia.

His school marketing experience began in the 1980s as a principal in two country primary schools and since 1994 in a secondary school.

Bryan Foster has held various senior and middle school management positions in Catholic schools: a primary school Principal in two schools, APRE in secondary school and Years 9, 11 and 12 Coordinator.

A highly ethical approach to marketing, and passion for marketing the Catholic school, was formed as a result of his extensive Church experiences, along with Religious Education teaching experience in Catholic primary and secondary schools in the city and country.

He was the Marketing Manager at Aquinas College, a secondary co-educational college on the Gold Coast, in what is arguably the most difficult school marketing region in Australia, since 1994 until last year. He was also the school’s Assistant Principal Religious Education for ten years. Bryan was seconded to Brisbane Catholic Education for the 2008 school year as the Catching Fire: Evangelization and Spiritual Formation Education Officer.

He holds a:
•   Master of Education from the Australian Catholic University in Sydney
•   Bachelor of Education}  
•   Graduate Diploma in Religious Education}
•   Diploma of Teaching} from McAuley Teachers College in Brisbane
•   Diploma of Religious Education from the Institute of Faith Education, Brisbane.

He has taught for over 30 years in Catholic schools from Years 1 to 12.

Bryan has assisted many school marketing coordinators. He is considered highly by Brisbane Catholic Education and throughout the years has assisted their marketing personnel.

Bryan lives on the Gold Coast in Australia. His wife, eldest daughter and son all teach in Catholic primary schools, while his younger daughter attends a Catholic secondary school.

The 'Church Marketing Plans and Strategies for Marketing the Church by Bryan Foster' blog post was written by Bryan Foster, author of Church Marketing Manual for the Digital Age (2nd ed), - the paperback and ebook manual for Church communications and marketing personnel - 304 pages of easy to read and implement summarized points, which allow for a considerably large number of quality stategies and examples to be detailed and available for church marketing personnel - with copyright remaining GDPL. Book available from Amazon.com and Createspace.com