Read part 1 from last week here! The big day is finally here. You've spent months, even years, investing in these people. They don their white outfits. The church smells of chrism. You all smile and hug and cry and take pictures. Retreat high x10 as new Catholics are received into the Church. Now for the uncomfortable question: How many of those people will you still be seeing at Mass six months from now? Both by research and anecdotally, OCIA numbers are trending up around the country, even...
about 12 hours ago • 5 min read
We've all heard the stat: 8% of your parishioners are doing the vast majority of the giving and volunteering. So we're probably tempted to think that from a marketing perspective, they are the most valuable group of parishioners we have. They're not. (Again, from a marketing perspective only. Obviously, every single person is valuable as a beloved child of God.) The most valuable group for marketing purposes? Your converts and reverts. If you want to grow your parish (and win more souls for...
7 days ago • 3 min read
In my first run of the Market Like Jesus course + community last year, my favorite section was somehow NOT the target audience section. (IYKYK...but let's be real, target audience was my second favorite, followed closely by Rule of Seven.) No, my favorite section was something I'd never taught on before: What the Catholic Church teaches about marketing. Specifically, what it teaches about the ethics of marketing. Because yes, there are actual Church documents that address marketing and...
8 days ago • 4 min read
The past few weeks, we've been talking about how to market when it's not a "busy season" so you don't have huge breaks in your marketing consistency. (Find part 1, part 2, and part 3 here.) Is it best to be consistent and keep up marketing? Yes. But, life happens. What do you do if you've already taken a significant break from marketing? Instead of tell you, I thought I'd show you. In October of 2025, I had our third child. I am stereotypically horrible at actually taking a maternity leave,...
14 days ago • 8 min read
Stretch those thumbs: It's time for the biggest evangelization day of the year. In less than 48 hours, people will start to stream through your church doors like you're giving away free iPhones instead of blessed dirt. For many, this is the only interaction they'll have with your church all year. They're hanging on by a literal thread of dirt — but they're still there. Which means we have a huge opportunity we don't get any other day of the year — bringing them one step closer to Jesus. And...
14 days ago • 3 min read
In 9 days, the unthinkable will happen: Every day, your church offers people the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. And your pews are sparse. But one day a year, you offer people blessed dirt, and suddenly you're at max capacity. I know Ash Wednesday is a busy day and the start of a busy season. I know that by the end of the day, you'll have distributed so many ashes that you'll mash up the two formulas into: "Repent and believe to dust you shall return." But we have an opportunity...
21 days ago • 6 min read
Catch up on part 1 and part 2 of this series here! I truly believe that when done well, marketing can be ministerial. Because what actually is ministry? It's serving others. It's sharing the faith. It's relationship. ⬆️ All of which good Catholic marketing does. Which means that even when you're in a "slow time" for sales... Even when people aren't exactly thinking about donating to your cause... Despite being in between events or big launches... I believe we have a call to continue marketing...
22 days ago • 3 min read
Catch up on part 1 of this series here! So the busy season is over. Do you: A) Make a note in your calendar to start marketing again in November? or B) Keep marketing even now as a way to sustain relationships with your people? Hopefully after last week's newsletter you picked B. :) But maybe you're still not sure what to talk about. Or you are still marketing, but nobody's taking any actions right now, so it feels kind of pointless. Here are two more things I bet Jesus did in the "off...
28 days ago • 4 min read
For the final part of our "marketing baptism" series (click to read part 1 and part 2), we're going to look at the critical piece to all of this: How to get people to baptize their children in the first place. You can't evangelize baptism families or their guests if no one is actually getting baptized. Because let me guess: Your funerals outnumber your baptisms at least 3:1. And listen, I normally focus on the evangelization side of things around here because that's obviously most important....
28 days ago • 5 min read