Meaning of the Term Black Church and Its Importance

Meaning of the Term Black Church and Its Importance The â€Å"black church† is a term used to describe Protestant churches that have predominately black congregations. More broadly, the black church is both a specific religious culture and a socio-religious force that has shaped protest movements, such as the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Origins of the Black Church The black church in the United States can be traced back to chattel slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries. Enslaved Africans brought to the Americas a variety of religions, including traditional spiritual practices. But the system of slavery was built on the dehumanization and exploitation of enslaved people, and this could only be achieved by depriving slaves of meaningful connections to land, ancestry, and identity. The dominant white culture of the time accomplished this through a system of forced acculturation, which included forced religious conversion. Missionaries would also use promises of freedom to convert enslaved Africans. Many enslaved people were told they could return to Africa as missionaries themselves if they converted. While it was easier for polytheistic beliefs to merge with Catholicism, which ruled in areas such as the Spanish colonies, than the Protestant Christian denominations that dominated early America, enslaved populations constantly read their own narratives into Christian texts and incorporated elements of their previous faiths into Christian frameworks. Out of this cultural and religious acculturation, early versions of the black church were born. Exodus, The Curse of Ham  and Black Theodicy Black pastors and their congregations maintained their autonomy and identify by reading their own histories into Christian texts, unlocking new routes for self-realization. For example, many black churches identified with the Book of Exodus’s story of the prophet Moses leading the Israelites escape from slavery in Egypt. The story of Moses and his people spoke to hope, promise and the benevolence of a God which was otherwise absent in the systematic and oppressive structure of chattel slavery. White Christians worked to justify slavery through the employment of a white savior complex, which  in addition to dehumanizing black people, infantilized them. They insisted that slavery was good for black people, because black people were inherently uncivilized. Some went so far as to claim that black people had been cursed and slavery was the necessary, God-intended punishment. Seeking to maintain their own religious authority and identity, black scholars developed their own branch of theology. Black theodicy refers specifically to theology that answers for the reality of anti-blackness and the suffering of our ancestors. This is done in a number of ways, but primarily by re-examining suffering, the concept of free-will, and God’s omnibenevolence. Specifically, they examined the following question: If there is nothing that God does that is not good in and of itself, why would he inflict such immense pain and suffering on black people? Questions like this one presented by black theodicy led to the development of another type of theology, which was still rooted in accounting for the suffering of black people. It is perhaps the most popular branch of black theology, even if its name is not always well known: Black Liberation Theology. Black Liberation Theology and Civil Rights Black Liberation Theology strove to incorporate Christian thought into the black community’s legacy as a â€Å"protest people.† By recognizing the social power of the church, along with the safety it offered within its four walls, the black community was able to explicitly bring God into the daily liberation struggle. This was famously done within the Civil Rights Movement. Although Martin Luther King Jr. is most often associated with the black church in the context of civil rights, there were many organizations and leaders during that time who leveraged the church’s political power. And although King and other early civil rights leaders are now famous for their nonviolent, religiously-rooted tactics, not every member of the church embraced nonviolent resistance. On July 10, 1964, a group of Black men led by Earnest â€Å"Chilly Willy† Thomas and Frederick Douglas Kirkpatrick founded The Deacons For Defense and Justice in Jonesboro, Louisiana. The purpose of their organization? To protect members of the Congress For Racial Equity (CORE) against violence from the Ku Klux Klan. The Deacons became one of the first visible self-defense forces in the South. Although self defense was not new, the Deacons were one of the first groups to embrace it as part of their mission. The power of Black Liberation Theology within the black church did not go unnoticed. The church itself came to serve as a place of strategy, development  and reprieve. It has also been a target of attacks by numerous hate groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan. The history of the Black church is long and not over. Today, the church continues to redefine itself to meet the demands of new generations; there are those within its ranks who work to remove factors of social conservatism and align it with new movements. No matter what position it takes in the future, it cannot be denied that the black church has been a pivotal force within Black American communities for hundreds of years and those generational memories are not likely to fade.

Event Marketing Plan How To Make Sure Yours Is Perfect

Event Marketing Plan How To Make Sure Yours Is Perfect If an event happens and nobody hears about it, did it really happen? Maybe thats not the philosophical question of the decade, but its a good one for content marketers to ask. Id hazard a guess that if not very many people heard about the event, it didnt really happen. Everything You Need To Know For The Perfect #EventMarketing Plan via @JulieNeidlingerWhy Hold An Event? Planning and hosting an event is a lot of work, and it may not seem worth the effort. You have enough going on with your blog, your social media, and all of the various content marketing efforts that help build your audience. Events, though, are one of the few ways you actually get personal  with your audience. This does two things: Your audience sees you as a person.  Events are a good way for you to connect to your readers in a human way. Your audience gets to meet others like them.  Events  can almost be a reward for a great audience, providing an event or venue where they can meet others with the same interests as them. Why is it important that people see you as people? Conversation and engagement online is one thing, but as every politician knows, you have to get out and meet the people.  Meeting people face-to-face increases loyalty to you, your message, and your brand. It removes that invisible layer that somehow allows people to say and do things online that they'd never do in person. And, while I'm sure your audience isn't made of trolls, that still allows for them to dismiss you easier than if they knew you in real life. If the research is true, and 90% of how we communicate is through non-verbal communication  like gestures and vocal quality,  a face-to-face meeting is more powerful than any blog post you'll ever write. 90% of how we communicate is non-verbal. That's why face-to-face is so  powerful.So an event strengthens the bonds between members of your audience, and it strengthens their loyalty to you. 4 Elements Of A Simple  Event Marketing Plan We make a planning app, so of course, we're going to tell you that the first thing you need to do is some serious planning. But that's not just prejudice talking- you need to plan your marketing for your event as much as you plan for things like venue, speakers, and catering. Think of your event as if it is the core of an apple. All of that stuff that surrounds it is pretty important for the person consuming it. An apple with only a core is an event without a marketing plan. No one reaches for an apple core  just like  no one comes to an event without the marketing that brought them there. Marketing your event is the only way to get people to show up. #eventmarketing1. Start by asking broad questions. Let's start with a few questions that you and your team can ask to get the ideas flowing in your initial planning meeting. You should have the planning and marketing team present. Order the answers you collect based on the most important or the most likely: What's the story behind your event? What is the theme behind your event? Why are you holding the event? Who do you hope will come? Who do you think will really come? What is the value of this event for those that will come? Is this event more important to us than to our audience? What do you hope people will take with them when the event is over? Will this event make your attendees' lives better? How will you know if your event is a success? What is the measurement? What is the most wildly amazing success that could happen from this event? What kind of budget is there for each team to work with? There is a subtle thread running through these questions: Are you planning an event because you need it, or because your audience needs it? The latter is the best choice, but either might be a reality. Are you planning an event because you need it, or because your audience needs it?It's not enough to start your planning with the idea of "we're going to have a few speakers  and a good brunch" and call it good. You must start with a broad understanding of the goal of the event. It's hard to create fantastic event marketing around the choice of fruit at the buffet. 2. Confirm details and lay out a budget. The budget. Never a sexy thing for most of us. But, after you've gotten a better understanding of the event, you need to create a budget before doing anything else. The event planners have (hopefully) been hard at work lining up everything from venue to speakers to  giveaways. You should now have an idea of: Date and/or  time Location Speakers Event format Even if these kinds of details aren't fully locked down, the marketing team should have enough to  get started on their marketing plan. And a marketing plan starts with a budget. You must not  proceed without a budget. It's tempting to get wrapped up in the excitement of what content you'll create, but a budget needs to be in place first. Planning #eventmarketing without a budget is like planning an  event without speakers. It's not...You must  know how much your marketing team is able to spend before you can plan your marketing approach. Without a budget, you could end up dumping a lot of money on huge glossy banners  and leaving very little for  other kinds of content marketing that might work better with those who are attending. 3.  Create a dedicated website and social accounts for your event. Let's start with the one piece of content that your event should have no matter what: a dedicated website. Your event (especially one that is a recurring event) should have its own Web page. It's better to send people to a website solely for the event rather than a page buried elsewhere in your site. Content Marketing World, from Content Marketing Institute, has a website to market their event. You should have a simple website for your event, too. If you follow these tips, your site might even be better than Content Marketing World's. If you aren't able to do this, at least consider a landing page with a custom domain name pointing to it. According to Orbit Media's Andy Crestodina, this dedicated website should have: Copy. You'll need, of course, compelling copy describing the event. And that compelling copy, of course, needs to somehow  tell the vital details of when, where, and what. Curation. All of the pre-event content should be curated in one place. Collect the social feeds, or use an app like Twubs to pull together all of the Tweets with your event's hashtag(s). Make it easy for those who find your site to get involved promoting it on social media. Speakers. Images and bios of the speakers who will  be at the event. You could even post videos of brief interviews of the speakers if you really wanted your attendees to get a feel for what their message is. Registration. Prominent registration button, making it super easy to register. Social proof. You need a way to display social proof. In other words, if you are getting some social buzz surrounding your event, it should be displayed prominently on your site. In a way, it's a bit like testimonials for how awesome the event is going to be. Along with a dedicated website, you should also have dedicated social accounts. While it's fine if your brand tweets and publishes content about the event, you should have separate accounts, too. Why? Your audience can reach out to you with questions easier. You can follow people with the event social accounts and make that part of your publicity efforts. Your tweets and posts won't get lost in other brand messages in news feeds and on your profile pages. It is easier to curate pre-event social content because the content is all in one account. It's also easier to measure the success of your social media plan because there is only event-related content present. You get twice the exposure, once on your brand account, and another on your dedicated account. Create a dedicated website and social media accounts as part of your event marketing plan.Your event matters. Give it its own Web and social media properties. It deserves that much. 4.  Plan the 3  major points of attack with 2  types of event content. Your event content marketing plan has three major points of attack: pre-event, during the event, and post-event. The content you create for each of those points is slightly different. There are also two kinds of content marketing that surround an event: informative and buzz. Let's take a look. Informative event content marketing tells attendees what they need to know. This might include information on registration  and deadlines, or sharing informative blog posts. If you notice a common questions popping up from attendees, you can answer it. This isn't "sexy" content, but it is useful content, and it's the information people need to know. Buzz event content marketing is self-explanatory. It's all about building the buzz and excitement for the event. It helps increase word-of-mouth, and its goal is to get more people to register for the event. This might include hints and event surprises  or  giveaways of event schwag. If you've planned a hashtag or other community-generated content idea around your event, that content fits here. Both of these event content types can be used by the three major points of attack. Pre-event content marketing happens long before the event happens. You have to get this one right. Before the event happens, your content marketing must: Let your audience know about your event. Get them excited enough to register and tell others. Keep your audience updated on the event so they feel in the know. Help your audience remain excited about the event. It's tough to keep the energy level of people up, but your event content marketing really needs to do that. During the event, your content marketing takes on a kind of "live reporter" feel. You're keeping both the event attendees informed, as well as those who are following along back home. And, you are still keeping the buzz alive. Even though many of your followers might not have made it to the event, you're still building buzz for future events. It's important to post social content throughout the event featuring inspirational quotes from speakers, photos of the fun everyone is having, and so on. Post-event content marketing is the one most content marketers forget. We all need a bit of closure, especially if your event is going to happen repeatedly. This is your chance to get testimonials or collect social posts that are enthusiastic about  your event. Reach out to attendees on social media. Thank them for coming. Ask their opinions on the event. Post some buzz content from the event, and hint at the next event. Share downloads, videos, and helpful related content that both attendees and non-attendees find useful.