Source: The New York Times
Wire Service: AP
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/05/27/us/AP-US-REL-Religion-Today.html?scp=6&sq=religion&st=nyt
Shrinking mainline Protestant denominations are turning to marketing to help stem decades of membership losses and stay afloat.
The United Methodist Church recently unveiled a $20 million rebranding effort aimed at attracting younger members to the large but diminishing Protestant group. The new ads will appear over the next four years as part of the denomination's ''Rethink Church'' campaign.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has invested nearly $1.2 million over the past two years launching a similar branding effort based on the theme, ''God's Work, Our Hands.''
The denominations are trying to bounce back from losses that began in the mid-1960s.