The spread of Christianity in the last two thousand years is filled with marketing innovation. In fact if you really think about it, Jesus Christ was one of the first people to introduce direct marketing to the world. Two thousand and four hundred years ago, direct marketing of Christianity was a groundbreaking approach to spreading religion. Here was a carpenter that was able to create a “virale marketing” phenomena by gathering 12 disciples and asking them to go and spread the good news of God through different parts of the world. Prior to Jesus Christ, religion was inclusive to a certain race, certain geography, or a certain class of society. Jesus Christ took a grass roots direct marketing approach and used fishermen, tax collectors, basically the average Joe off the street and asked them to take it the people. The model of the home family church thrived and exponentially grew despite the persecution of Christians by the Roman Empire.
Another growth spurt for Christianity was the invention of the Guggenheim press. Prior to the invention of the Guggenheim press, books were laboriously hand written and copied. The Guggenheim press changed all that, as books now could be mass-produced cheaply and in volume. It was a technology breakthrough that allowed the 1st book in the Guggenheim press, the Bible, to be mass produced in volume and delivered to the illiterate masses. The illiterate peasant now could have a Bible to learn English, bridge the “knowledge” divide, and empower themselves with knowledge. Not only that but the stories of our benevolent God was plastered in every page of this school book, the Bible. Inherently the “have-nots” of the Western civilization were converted to Christianity concurrent with the rise of literacy.
So what has happened with the growth of Christianity today? If you look at the United States today there are about 159 million people that call themselves Christians. The growth of Christians is growing about 2% per year which is roughly equivalent to the growth of the US population. Christianity in first world countries, especially in the youth groups, has slowed to a halt. My generation feeds off of twitter, Facebook and Zynga. Christianity is still the largest religion in the world with growth spurts in emerging markets areas such as China, Latin America, and Korea. Dr. Cho Yongchi and his Yoido Full Gospel Church have pioneered the cell group model to ministry amassing whopping 1 million members in his congregation. This is an approach that a number of Christians are adapting and succeeding. At its core the cell group approach uses a network topology for a multiplier effect. The growth and spread of Christianity in a cell group approach is exponential.
So let me leave you further room for thought by quoting an excerpt from Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, the nation’s foremost expert in the new science of networks, in his book “Linked”
“The early Christian were nothing more than a renegade Jewish Sect. Regarded as eccentric and problematic, they were persecuted by both Jewish and Roman authorities … Christianity, like many other religious movements in human history, seemed doomed to oblivion. Despite the odds, close to two billion people call themselves Christians today. How did that happen? How did the unorthodox beliefs of a small and disdained Jewish sect come to form the basis of the Western world’s dominant religion? … But credit for the success of Christianity in fact goes to an orthodox an pious Jew who never met Jesus. While his Hebrew name was Saul, he is better known to us by his Roman name, Paul. Paul’s life was to curb Christianity. He traveled from community to community persecuting Christians because they put Jesus, condemned by the authorities as a blasphemer, on the same level as God … Nevertheless, according to historical accounts, this fierce persecutor of Christian underwent a sudden conversion in the year 34 and became the fiercest supporter of the new faith …. How did Paul’s efforts succeed? The message had to spread. So he used his firsthand knowledge of the social network of the first century’s civilized world from Rome to Jerusalem to reach and convert as many as he could. He walked nearly 10,000 miles in the next twelve years of his life. He did not wander randomly, however, he reached out to the biggest communities of his era, to the people and places in which the faith could germinate and spread most effectively. He was the first and by far the most effective salesperson of Christianity, using theology and social networks equally effectively. Could it happen again? “
Jesus and Paul were the first true virale marketers. They were the first to create a social network, a network where everyone was equal & was used for social upheaval. FaceBook is a digital variant of what Jesus pioneered thousand of years ago. I believe in the future someone will create a religion built on the top of a platform like Facebook - the world’s first SNS religion. Could it be Zuck that does this? Zuck is like Jesus, they are both Jewish and they both walk around in sandals?
