🧱 Breaking Down the Walls: What the Nursery and Jericho Taught Me About Marketing

If you’ve ever walked into the nursery at Strongsville UMC after my kids, Arthur and Lucy, have been in there for an hour, you know what "purposeful chaos" looks like. They aren't trying to be destructive, but a mess is definitely made.

Usually, they are acting out because they are hungry, tired, or just seeking connection. They are human—just like the rest of us.

But as I’ve learned in my 10+ years of strategy work, the messes we make on a daily basis in our adult lives are often harder to spot than a ball pit explosion on a church carpet. Our "red decisions"—the moments we choose pride or anger over grace—create wounds. Over time, those wounds build up into walls that prevent us from making true connections with our neighbors.

The "Crusty Walls" of Our Community

It isn't always a conscious decision to hide away, but the wall exists nonetheless. When we talk about "church marketing," we have to remember who we are talking to. Our neighbors in Northern Ohio often have wounds that have formed hard, crusty walls.

These walls are why a "lazy" church invitation—a generic pamphlet in a mailbox or a dry Facebook post—almost always fails. You can't yell over a wall and expect a relationship to form.

The Jericho Method of Relationship Building

I recently revisited one of my kids' favorite Bible stories (and a VeggieTales classic): The Battle of Jericho.

Think about it: Did the Israelites stay on their side of the river and timidly ask Jericho to surrender via a spyglass? No. They got close. They walked around those walls with purpose and music for seven days. No matter how much the people of Jericho mocked them, God’s people persisted through the uncomfortable pain of acting "silly" because they were focused on their mission.

Why don’t we take a similar approach?

Instead of using a digital spyglass to spot your neighbors from a distance, why not "circle back" around with purpose? I’m talking about real relationship building, not just another piece of junk mail.

Lowering the Defenses

Breaking down these walls isn't going to happen by chance. It requires a "no robots, real insights" approach to how we communicate. At John Funtik Marketing, I help churches move past the "lazy" invite and into a strategy of persistent, neighborly connection.

We can't just sit on our side of the river. We have to train our staff and congregations on how to lower those defenses and be good neighbors to our communities here in Ohio.

Marketing is the first 30 seconds of discipleship. If we want the walls to come down, we have to be willing to start the walk.

Stop being busy, start making connections. Want help getting your teams on board? Let's set up a free 15-minute chat to discuss how your church can have a greater impact in your local community.

Free Consultation

15min

Book Now