Technology and churches are still big news! The Sunday Times had a front page article called, “Our Father, Lead Us to Tweet, And Forgive the Trespassers.”

Months ago, I blogged about the Trinity Church tweeting the Stations of the Cross. I thought it was the only interesting use of the technology other than for PR folks. Turns out it had some glitches. See, the issue with Twitter is that it’s interactive, and people started tweeting back (and not things like “Amen.”) The church took it in stride and were at least pleased these interactors were paying attention.

This article is the latest in an evidently growing number of articles about religious institutions and technology. (See post below on CyberSynagague.) The uptick has occurred because these institutions are now having to deal with Web 2.0. Do we use Facebook? We’ve signed up for Twitter, but now what? (Which is what everyone else is say too, no?)

The difference for religious institutions broadly is that much of the benefit they provide, particularly these days, is community and fellowship–something that is in direct contradiction to the isolation of digital technology. Individual faiths also have specific issues, such as Muslims’ concerns with being watched by antiterrorist investigators and Catholics’ concerns with message control.

What has happened, though, is what happened with marketing–one by one, each group finds some way to use the technology to further their needs.

The cover story for the summer issue of Reform Judaism is called CyberSanctuary. It is about how Internet technology is being used within congregations and within reform institutions, i.e., Union for Reform Judaism.

It was interesting that the magazine gave this topic the cover. I say this because much of what was discussed in the piece didn’t seem particularly new. Rabbis mentioned that they had been using podcasts for three years and blogging for two–that doesn’t constitute “new news.” Other uses of the Internet included posting monthly bulletins and using emails for death notices. Congregations are also providing their services online so that people who can’t make it to the synagogue can participate virtually–something Christians have obviously been doing for quite some time.

A couple of new ideas were mentioned: web sites that help track b’nai mitzvah students’ progress, video conferencing and social networking. This last was useful primarily for engaging younger congregants. One thing I thought was interesting is students practicing their Torah portion and uploading to a site so their tutor could review it before their next lesson. This is an effective use of the technology to further religious study and not one I had seen before.

The article is worth a look for a few pieces of interesting information like the last one mentioned above. In addition, it contains several links so you can see what various institutions are up to.

And a new tween mag Relate focuses on fashion, entertainment and faith. Below is the video that introduces the publication.

More interesting for our purposes is the video that appears under the tab for faith. While talking about girls and faith, notice the sponsor logos behind the speaker. Most interesting is Claire’s–a store that sells jewelry and makeup and all sorts of faddish things that get girls to focus on what they look like. This video is of an awards ceremony for girls who wrote essays about how they can be “true to themselves” in this day and age–particularly as it relates to purity. The best essays are rewarded with, you guessed it, gift cards. So much for separation of God and Mannon.

Here’s the Scientology commercial I wrote about last week.

Last night I was watching “How do you solve a problem like Maria?” which I had Tivo’d a few nights ago. The show is a reality series that is trying to find the lead for a revival of Sound of Music being produced by Andrew Lloyd Weber.

That’s not the interesting part (though the show is enjoyable and not all as mean-spirited as other reality series). What was interesting was the new commercial by Scientology. It is a montage of different people of all races and ethnicities, though mostly young people — early to mid-20s. The commercial ends with the tagline, “It’s life, and it’s yours” and directs viewers to go to their web site. (The commercial itself is not available online. You’ll have to find it on cable television and from what I can determine, mostly smaller cable networks like IFC and History Channel.)

When you go to scientology.org, you will find an array of videos (but not the commercial). There are two things I found particularly of interest here: 1) all the commercials were described as Public Service Announcements which would mean that the church would get free air time to play then, and 2) there was a section entitled “Way to Happiness.”

Way to Happiness contains some very highly produced and entertaining PSAs. (Again, I would share them with you, but the site only allows you to send them to a friend — and thus capture emails — but not to embed it on a blog.) Check out the first one called “Take Care of Yourself.” It’s one of the best produced ads I’ve seen. Note that the end of the spot takes you to another web site called The Way to Happiness. This site contains no information that would suggest that it is in any way tied to the Church of Scientology.

In sum, we have a new ad campaign targeting young people, a web site that does not signal its affiliation with the Church of Scientology, and a marketer that doesn’t want you to share videos except in a way in which they can capture your name and email. While the technology has changed, the game remains the same.

This past Sunday, The New York Times ran a story about Rev. A. R. Bernard.

I was drawn to the article, in part, because of the call-out quote. It said, “A Brooklyn church with more than 30,000 members is run with corporate efficiency. And the pastor has the mayor’s ear.” This caught my eye because we don’t usually think about megachurches being in New York City, but of course there are a number of them. Then I wondered, “Why don’t we hear about this church like we do Joel Osteen’s Lakewood or Rick Warren’s Saddleback?” In part, this may be because the Christian Cultural Center (CCC) is a predominantly African American church run by an African American pastor. While President Obama broke the color barrier for the presidency, the same is not yet true about the visibility of black pastors versus white ones. Sure we see Creflo Dollar and T.D. Jakes, but were they asked to the inauguration? Are they on Time’s list of most influential people or do they sit across the desk from Larry King on a regular basis? (Okay, T.D. Jakes was endlessly on Dr. Phil, but that’s because they were developing a new show for him.)

The lack of visibility could be attributed to African American churches — even megachurches — being fundamentally different from their white brethren. They aren’t all in the South, and they aren’t traditionally as conservative. When you aren’t controversial, you don’t get the media attention.

In the case of CCC, they use noncontroversial megachurch characteristics such as using Disney consultants (who Pastor Bernard switched to after first reviewing the sales manual for Amex) and small groups, but shy away from contentious characteristics like prosperity preaching. This has been a recipe for success and growth, which is what is most important because size is what leads power and ultimately to the ear of the powerful.

Perhaps, then, it doesn’t matter that these churches have not been in the spotlight and, perhaps, that is changing.

This morning Ad Age, one of advertising’s leading trade publications, did a story on marketing religion. I guess this means that the topic has finally hit the big time.

Churches Get Religion on Marketing focuses on traditional churches’ concerns that they are losing the young generation — those elusive 18-34 year olds that marketers of all persuasions covet. (If you remember from prior posts the friars, too, were also looking for young applicants but in their case a specifically male audience.)

To lure this particularly fickle cohort, the United Methodist Church has launched a $20 million advertising campaign — not an unsubstantial sum of money. With the message to “Rethink Church,” the campaign is an attempt to re-frame church as more active experience by using a combination of non-traditional media:

Street teams, door hangers, T-shirts, Twitter and Facebook are included as campaign media, along with network TV, radio print, mobile, e-mail, outdoor and event sponsorships. The efforts all point back to the website www.10thousanddoors.org, where users can do everything from posting prayer requests and purchasing malaria nets for charity to finding daycare.

I find the idea of making church more active, more integrated, more participatory particularly interesting given my latest research (and something that was part of my long and very pleasant conversation with the reporter of this piece — “Mara Epstein” in the piece is in fact me in case you were wondering — this mistake has since been fixed). Churches are starting to realize that they need to take ownership of those things that make them different. What can a church give people that the consumer culture can not? One of those things (among many others) is service. Churches need to jump on this idea because brand companies have been co-opting this attribute at an increasing rate. Whether it’s Product (RED) (buy a t-shirt and you help people dying of AIDS in Africa) or Nike’s Human Race (run a race and money goes to one of three charities of your choice) or hundreds of other “buy-a-product-help-the-world” campaigns, branding companies are monopolizing social causes and religious institutions are going to find themselves left out in the cold.

Teaching how to “do service” is something that this generation is searching for. If churches want to tract this “religious consumer,” they need to position themselves as the authority on service and they need to do it now before Corporate America — and Barack Obama for that matter — beat them to it.

On Saturday, April 25th, Joel Osteen will appear at Yankee Stadium for “a historic night of hope and celebration.”

While the Yankees have had a hard time filling the infield seats, I doubt that will be the case with Joel Osteen. (Of course, Joel isn’t charging $2500 a pop so that should help considerably.) In fact, seats are reasonably priced at $15 plus a $4 fee. I just tried to order tickets from Ticketmaster and the best seats available were in section 311 — the second tier from the top. (Maybe the Yankees could learn something about marketing from Joel.)

It seems the Night of Hope is a tour that is replacing the former book tours. In addition to New York, there are nights (with Joel AND Victoria) schedule in Columbus and Minneapolis.

I’m all for creating hope and finding anything to celebrate in these hard times. I have to wonder, though, about how the prosperity preaching that Joel is famous for is faring during these economically depressed times. Is this waking people up to the ineffectiveness of wishful thinking or is it making them cling more desperately?

The Pew Forum came out with a new study showing that the recession has not led to increased church attendance overall.

I thought this finding was counterintuitive. People tend to turn to faith in times of crisis. It would be interesting to know if there have been increases in certain segments of the faith community. Does anyone know if that’s been done?

Yesterday, the Trinity Church in New York City twittered (tweeted?) the stations of the cross. This is the first time the Passion Play has been “performed” via Twitter. To check it out for yourself, go to http://twitter.com/twspassionplay.

I have to admit to not being a fan of Twitter because the only thing I ever thought it would be useful for is PR people who need to reach lots of people on a deadline. I have to say, however, this is a particularly interesting use of the medium. The Passion Play tells a story over a specified period of time, and the church wants people to think about Christ for that sustained period of time. The medium allows continuing interest and anticipation in a way other presentations of this story might not. Bravo to Trinity.

There was a book review last week in the Financial Times for a book called God is Back. It is written by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, who have written several other books together.

While I have not yet read the book, the basic premise does not appear to be new at all though the review makes it appear that way. The authors are economists and they look at religion through that lens suggesting that the way Americans practice their faith — with church and state as separate entities — is what allows it to thrive. I and many others before me have said the same thing. What is new is that the authors suggest that around the world, religion is growing based on this model rather than the European one where secularism has marginalized faith.

There is also a Fox News site has a good review of the book.