FOMO Church Marketing

"You don't want to miss out!"

Photo by Sigmund on Unsplash

I am so old that whenever I see a series of letters in a text, sentence, or advertisement, I search Google. FTW. IYKYK. IMO. TL;DR. If that fails, I ask my daughters.

FOMO - Fear of Missing Out

I’d be lying if I did not experience that sense in nearly every decade of life. When Polo and Izod were the rage, we wore the department store knockoffs. No one said anything. But we knew. This may seem too personal, but when 501s were the only acceptable jeans, my backside was not large enough. It looked like I had gotten into my Dad’s drawers, literally and figuratively.

Patty and I got married on the Friday of my sophomore year's Spring Break. She was a teacher’s aide at an elementary school, and her Spring Break was the following week. We spent two nights at a Holidome that has been razed—no Caribbean or European honeymoon for us.

Yes, over the past 42 years, we have traveled to many places we never imagined all those years ago - Vancouver, B.C., Dresden, Prince Edward Island, Hawaii, Alaska and Belize. Are you feeling any FOMO yet?! If not, I have been to Hong Kong, Spain (Seville and Barcelona), Cuba, Durbin, Myanmar, Israel, and Turkey. FOMO now?

Just like you, I have had friends travel and tell us, “You must go to [wherever in the Carmen San Diego they had just returned from].” There always seems to be a twinge of FOMO after every exhortation. Add Instagram, and not only does FOMO rise from your ears, but it now infects your eyes.

What changed for us? I traveled serving on the General Council of the Baptist World Alliance. The remainder came from the generosity of our congregation and my parents.

Giving in to FOMO is expensive.

FOMO is not all about travel. We feel FOMO when we notice clothing trends, see new cars, fancy houses, dream vacations, and must-see concerts just to scratch the surface.

Competition for time, any time, is intense, in part, due to FOMO itself.

Increasingly, I read and see pastors and staff members using FOMO to prod members and potential guests alike to avoid missing church or a church event. This strategy comes at a time when attendance is down. Giving, tithing, ranks below paying taxes (they are not the same). And clergy are trusted half as much as your veterinarian and not much more than union leaders.

Given the decline in trust afforded clergy, using FOMO to solicit participation seems as helpful as your congressional representatives telling you to trust that they read all 549 pages of the Big Beautiful Bill. They haven’t. And not one Gospel appeal in the Acts of the Apostles appeals to FOMO.

When FOMO marketing comes to a church, what is being missed?