People's Perception of Promotional Strategies for Church Growth in Zimbabwe: A Case of Pentecostal Churches in Masvingo

Abstract

In the past non-profit organizations used to operate in a different way than for profit making firms. Today not for profit institutions have taken the business approach of management, including the aspect of promoting their services, aggressive advertising of their special events which has become a new phenomenon especially in Zimbabwe in Africa. Pentecostal churches have opened a new approach to managing church activities as well as promoting their growth.  This development was welcomed by most churches which now involve advertising of services, personal selling or face to face selling of church services, invitation of relatives to special church events such as guest days, communion service, music days, miracle crusades and miracle healing nights. This survey intends to test the impact of such promotions to Pentecostal church growth, as well as to test the perceptions of customers towards the church services of the African Pentecostal congregations which had a tradition of not promoting church activities.   It is against this background that this research  was  carried  out  and a sample of  respondents was picked from six Masvingo based Pentecostal churches namely ZAOGA (24), Family Of God church(24), African Faith Ministries(23), UFIC( United Family International Ministries )(23),Christ Embassy(23) and Alliance Church (23) who added up to 140 respondents. The respondents were selected from the identified church on their major church services, and some were picked from the groups mid week`s meetings The researcher chose to use the descriptive survey research design which gave him the ability to get in-depth study of the research subjects and members could be approached easily and the discussions were done and questionnaires collected a day later to provide ample time to answer the questions at home.  The results show that on a general note promotion of church activities has now been accepted as a good and effective strategy for church growth. It was noted that the promotional elements used may not have the same effectiveness in their use but all combined can bring a good results to the church leader. This therefore implies that church pastors be marketing oriented so that they employ some marketing strategies to be able to satisfy the needs of individual members either general members or leaders who lead others. Gone are the days when church leaders would lead without communication, segmenting and even providing assistants to the community event in markets like Zimbabwe in Africa.