So you've decided to stick your neck out there and start a ministry for twentysomethings. Or maybe an established church has hired you to reach that all too unreachable young adult generation. You've developed a core team of leaders and volunteers. You've spent hours upon hours in prayer, reflection and discussion, crafting an innovative vision birthed by God to impact the young adults in your community. You're fired up. You're ready to love, to serve, to embark on this brand new mission to a largely ignored generation.

I, along with a group of about 12 other young adults, found myself in the very same situation. I was hired, roughly nine months ago, by a church to plant, develop and shepherd a young adult ministry. Our little group had the purpose, the vision, the people and the drive … There was only one missing piece: marketing. I know … ugh … cringe … blah. It sounds, dare I say, so businesslike.

But yet, no matter how our leadership team looked at it, we couldn't escape the fact that we had to develop creative ways to get the word out about this new community that we had formed. But how? What should we do? Where should we start?

This is the first installment of a series on ministry marketing, most of which comes from lessons learned by our community, VOX Ohio. Our marketing journey was (and still is) by no means exemplary. I'm sure there are other ministries that are doing this marketing thing better. We've certainly made some mistakes. As the pastor of VOX, I don't know how many times I've wished that I had one of those "easy buttons" from those Staples commercials. (Man, those are cool.)

Yet, last I checked, pioneering pastors and young adult leaders have no such easy button. (Dang) My hope is that this series will help prevent many of you from having to endure such a wandering, aimless, haphazard marketing process as you try to get the word out about the amazing stuff you're doing as a faith community. Before I get into the nuts and bolts of our community's journey, some initial principles are critical.

The marketing never, ever trumps the mission.

Marketing and promotion can consume you. Initially, it's incredibly time consuming. I found myself having to continually watch where I spent my time. There were entire days I spent working with one or two other people just on marketing busywork. Those were hours that could've been better spent on building relationships. Marketing should be an asset to your mission. Don't let it consume you. You can have the slick logo, website and posters you want, but if you don't have the loving relationships, you've got nothing. Brian McLaren once said in an interview, "I don't think we should try to improve our marketing until we first go back and look at our message, our content, and our people." He's right. Make sure your marketing doesn't distract from your mission.

Do your homework.

This is something our community didn't do, and wished that we would have. We just hit the ground running and hoped we were coming up with stuff that would work. If I had a pastoral mulligan, this is how I would have better prepared to launch our marketing and promotions.

Network. Young adult leaders are a small, but resourceful bunch. Lean on and glean from the wisdom of others who are in the same position. The RELEVANT Network has been a wonderful networking tool for our ministry. Renew your subscription! Send emails. Start discussion threads. Shake as many trees as you can, and see what fruit falls.

Read. Pick up a copy of Church Marketing 101, by Richard L. Reising. You all should have received it in a recent RELEVANT Network Kit. Dust it off, and check it out. Reising has a lot of insight on how to do marketing well. In his words, marketing "is about effectively communicating. It is meant to support a work that God is doing in your church—not replace it."

Browse. Check out what other ministries are doing, via Google or RELEVANT's church directory. Take a look at their websites. Get a feel for how your mission could be communicated.

Church Marketing Sucks. Like the phrase or not, it's true. Most church marketing still uses the clip art that came with Microsoft Windows '95. Thankfully, there's a website devoted to helping the church improve its marketing. ChurchMarketingSucks.com is a one-stop online resource full of ideas, tools and guidelines to help your marketing not suck.

Simply put, ministry is tough. The twentysomething generation is a difficult group to reach. Good marketing is essential. In an age of multi billion-dollar Madison Avenue advertising targeted directly at the 18-34 demographic, clip art, FrontPage and poster boards with glittery finger paint don't quite cut it. And until some genius can figure out how to create an "easy button" and defy the laws of space, time and physics, you and I must invest the time, energy and resources into marketing our ministries with excellence.

Hopefully this series will save you a lot of headaches and a lot of money. Ultimately, my hope is that it will free you up to spending time doing the truly essential part of your mission: building relationships and fostering community. All this is of course, assuming that none of you have an easy button … If you do, please share the love.

Drew Moser is the pastor of VOX (www.voxohio.org), a blogger (www.drewmoser.blogspot.com), and a diehard, eternally optimistic Cubs fan. There's always next year…