New Media Catholic

I’ve recently discovered a Catholic blog written by Marc Cardaronella. The first post I read was one that all Catholic communicators should read and think about. It’s titled “What on Earth Does Sales Have to Do With Catholic Evangelization?“

In it he talks about the relationship between sales and relationships. He makes some excellent points with words of warning about appearing benefit-driven, rather than Christ-driven, and understanding what it is that we are trying to “sell” when we communicate the faith. He quotes blogger Eric Sammons over at “The Divine Life,” in saying that we are “selling” white teeth, not toothpaste.

Read his post, and then my comments below will make sense.

3/12/11:

Awesome post! The difference between evagelization and sales is that when people sell you something, you almost never care if they actually own the product they’re selling. When you purchase phone, whether or not the salesman actually owns the phone is only moderately relevant. You don’t expect them to own the phone. When people evangelize, others expect them to own that faith and have relevant experiences with it.

If you don’t have experiences to use as examples for how this faith changed your life, the person sees you as immediately suspect (and they should).

Selling the faith isn’t just about persuasion, either–it’s about showing the truth. One phone might not be a perfect fit for you (and a good salesman will tell you that, even if it means loosing a sale)– but if you are evangelizing the faith, you are not promoting one amongst many other true religions. You are promoting THE religion, THE truth. And if it’s real, you’ll understand with the heart, as Christ says in Matthew.