This book was great if your a believer and love God get your hands on this. The Household of God must answer the bell in the 21st century because now it seems we are sleeping. God hasn't called us to be comfortable but obedient. George Barna hits the issues head on. A MUST READ

The Second Coming is a well worth read for anyone interested in church change. "While poverty is growing and welfare is declining,the average church spends $6 on facilities for every $1 it spends on its ministry to the poor." states Barna. Such facts bring home the truth that the 21st Century Church will sink or swim depending on whether or not it's willing to change. Overall, Barna sails us through the state of the Church with a myriad of facts and figures combined with his intense yet interesting commentary. His early comments on leadership are very insightful but one can't help feeling a little lost with barna's "four types of leadership" comments that look more like a business plan than an early church model for the 21st century which incorporated the priesthood of all believers.

This book will astound you about the irrelevancy of the church in the current age. The church to be able to even maintain some success will need to reinvent all that it is doing to meet the needs of the common people in the streets. Barna is definitely hard hitting, and accurate. This book is a must read for the church to maintain any semblance of reality for our society. Barna points out that the church must turn the corner away from the culture impacting the church, but to the contrary the church must impact the culture. You will not want to miss this book, especially those of you who are Christians and wanting to see the world changed by the church.

Like Paul realizing the need to shape the message without bending the truth, to learn to speak in a way which will be listened to, George Barna's "Marketing the Church: What They Never Taught You About Church Growth" has much to teach the modern church.

Controversial when it first came out, clergy and other church leaders are discovering how every interaction with the public is communicating something about the church. Whether it is the sign in front or the door to door evangelism, and even a small ad announcing next week's sermon, that is marketing, and is not an unholy idea. When you created those things, you thought about the people who would be seeing them, and applied what you knew.

Barna shows what marketing really is, and how it can help remove the roadblocks from people coming to a church. Pastor Bill Hybels at the megachurch, Willow Creek in IL, knows this stuff and has seen plenty of growth--and plenty of new believers! Barna is an evangelical, with a conservative base, and his book stats true to this.

He explains carefully the principles behind the term marketing. He knows it is a daunting word, and that some people can and have abused marketing within Christendom.

He emphasizes knowing your market, and that you don't need fancy statistics to get the job done. You know your neighbor.

One thing which Barna challenges the reader to do--and church leaders at large--is to articulate and write down what they know. The sum of what they know is probably large, but when it written, it can be organized, and from that, strategized.

The strategy is the book's strength. Using gifts as provided by the Lord, church leaders draw from their resources and build a marketing plan. Barna is certain to point out this job is bigger than the pastor, but will require many people if things are to be carried out well.

Fundamentally, Barna would agree, that a church marketing plan is merely applying the church's mission statement into several steps. If you want to bring together another 200 people each Sunday, and you have currently 100, how will this happen? Newspaper ads? Flyers? Radio commercials? Special events? All of the above? Do you know why people your neighborhood don't want to go to any church? Are there needs you can meet?

I feel as if this little book can revolutionize how a church can think about the neighborhood around them, and build great hope for church growth with integrity.

I fully recommend, "Marketing the Church: What They Never Taught You About Church Growth" by George Barna.

Anthony Trendl

My Pastor gave me this book when he joined our church in the late 80's. Up until that time anytime I shared my insights about applying my professional marketing training to the work of the church I was reminded that marketing was for salespeople and not applicable in the church. I remember weeping with joy when I recieved Barna's book. I actually had the affirmation that the gifts I brought to the table could be used to administer Christ's blessing. Barna is a master researcher, if you are interested in what works and what doesn't you can trust Barna's insights because it's backed by solid research. I highly recommend this book to anyone... it delivers.

I read this book back in the late 70s and found it to be very enlightening. To this day, I consider it to be one of the best church management books that I have read. It is a book that will scare some people because of the term "marketing," a term which implies something dirty even though we all participate in it. Church leaders have to recognize that they are operating in an environment of competition and that having a clear statement of purpose/vision is important and equally important, is communicating that purpose. Barna is frank to admit that some people may loose sight of the purpose of good marketing but overall it is a process which helps to build a successful ministry. Worthwhile reading for anyone on a church publicity committee and anyone with an open mind about the realities in which we operate.

I picked up this book because I was looking for a "front end" to a disciple-making program for my local church. I found a few things I can use. While Barna's passion is well-founded, he chooses to make the same arguments that has lead to a spiritual dichotomy: 84% of American's claiming a "Christian" faith while our society and culture crumble. It seems we have the evangelism part down, but we lack the proof that what we preach works in our own lives. (Barna briefly hits on "disciple-making" in this book and goes on to write a great book on the subject, "Growing True Disciples"). If the energy and resources put into evangelism were put into disciple-making, Christianity would have a profound impact on ourselves, our families, churches, neighborhoods, and world. Barna doesn't make this argument, so I my opinion, this book falls short in identifying "Evangelism that Works".

This book provides many good ideas but falls somewhat short on presenting how-to items succinctly.

What I was looking for was a book I could use to teach a class on relationship evangelism. Furthermore, my ideal is a book that addresses post-modern people (especially Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers) with their common aversion to embracing any exclusive or absolute truth. This book worked very well, but I had to work harder than I would have liked in creating my own group study guide.

This book, like most on the subject, takes a narrative approach to each chapter. What I would have liked but did not find were:
1. Discussion or review questions at the end of each chapter
2. Application exercise(s) at the end of each chapter, focused on building lifelong habits.

The content is there, but not split out in a clear, action-oriented recap. Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry & Mary has similar strenghts and weaknesses.

A promising new book that I may use is Evangelism Outside The Box (Rick Richardson, 2000).

Older books that have worked very well for me in teaching others are: (roughly in order of preference): Power Evangelism (John Wimber, 1992), Witnessing Without Fear (Bill Bright, 1987), Out of the Salt Shaker (Rebecca Pippert).

This book provides insights into where students are today. It equips youth pastor's to better serve students by giving them a better understanding of where students are emotinally, socially and spiritually. Barna doesn't just shove statistics down your throat but offers valuable insights that are very useful in student ministry.

George Barna has written some excellent books, but this is not one of his best. It is very much like many books about church growth. If you are not well-read on this subject, you might enjoy this book more than I.

Barna's strength is his diagnosis of trouble. His solutions are,in my view, weak. When dealing with church growth in general, one has to ask the question, "If I have to do such and such and have a church that is such and such, is it worth having this kind of church at all? Is this a Christianity WORTH reproducing?"

George Barna has done an excellent job of pointing out what it takes to turn around a plateaued or declining church. What he writes I find to be true but sometimes it may be tough to hear. He does clarify what kind of pastor it will take and that most of these kinds of churches have a pastor that is not gifted for the task. It has been my personal experience that what he says works. I came to the conclusion after reading this book that many churches are not willing to pay the price to follow a pastor that is gifted to turn a church around. As a pastor this book caused me to take a closer look at churches and why they fail.

I believe Barna has done an excellent job at pointing out what it takes to turn a church around that is plateaued or declining. He points out the kind of pastor and leaders that it will take also. From my personal experience the advice he gives is tough but accurate. The advice he gives is not just his personal advice but from pastors that have actually turned churches around.

Barna is marketing expert and very good at it. However, applying this to church growth is tragic error.

I find no support Biblically for the positions he makes. Further critique may be found in my book, Testing the Claims of Church Growth.

Dangerous principles to be brought into the church of Jesus Christ.

This volume begins with a defense of church marketing principles that includes some references to scripture. Then Barna jumps into the basic steps of marketing a church, beginning with data collection, and moving to development of a vision and construction of a marketing plan. The appendices at the back give specific examples of the materials and work involved, from surveys to marketing resources.
Good: This book is a very easy read. Instructions are clear and plenty of charts are used to give a good understanding of the process, including a sample marketing plan. Bad: Much of the criticism church marketing has received is justified, and the faults are seen in full force in this book. Barna basically pastes business promotion principles to the church and justifies it by proof-texting carefully selected scripture passages. If the church caters to the felt-needs of the larger culture its values will become just another reflection of the culture. Rather than transforming the world, it will be transformed by the world (Rom. 12:1-2).
Opinion: There's lots of useful information for church outreach in this book, but ultimately it compromises too much. Jesus never took surveys of the culture He ministered in. The danger Christianity encounters when working in a capitalistic culture is the temptation to become customer-service oriented. Barna completely caters to that mindset: surveys are prescribed to determine what the public desires, and a "marketing plan" (which hinges on a business-type of "vision statement" and "mission statement") is created to meet these desires. This book may be helpful if referenced by church leaders, but only with a strong measure of caution.

Is a very good book, since it presents marketing concepts as they apply to ministry and making ministry a more effective operation. Some small or new churches lack the marketing knowledge and may wonder around without a clear mission or vision of how to grow. This book presents these key concepts for the development of a marketing plan. The book also provides insight to the status quo, the resistance to change, calls reader's attention to this fact that limits many times the growth of a church. One more time, this is a must read book.