The age-long controversy on the application of marketing in religious and church organisations has made some strides after almost a decade ago when Bruce Wrenn wrote: “religious marketing is different”. However, this has focused on the application of marketing mix tactics without a clear understanding of the competitive marketing strategies underpinning them. This study, thus, set out to explore and develop a theoretical understanding of the competitive marketing strategies adopted by churches in Ghana. This study used a focus group study consisting of active church members from the different denominational groups in Ghana who have relevant knowledge in marketing and the marketing tactics used by their church. Using a deductive thematic analysis approach, this paper identified marketing as a necessary tool for churches and several competitive marketing strategies adopted by churches in attaining competitive advantage were identified and discussed. Finally, the implications of the findings for church growth and survival as well as directions for future empirical research were also discussed.

近十年前布鲁斯·雷恩 (Bruce Wrenn) 写道：“宗教营销是不同的”之后，关于营销在宗教和教会组织中应用的长期争议取得了一些进展。然而，这侧重于营销组合策略的应用，而没有清楚地了解支撑它们的竞争营销策略。因此，这项研究旨在探索和发展对加纳教会采用的竞争营销策略的理论理解。本研究使用焦点小组研究，由来自加纳不同教派团体的活跃教会成员组成，他们在营销方面具有相关知识以及他们教会使用的营销策略。运用演绎主题分析法，本文将营销确定为教会的必要工具，并确定并讨论了教会为获得竞争优势而采用的几种竞争营销策略。最后，还讨论了调查结果对教会成长和生存的影响以及未来实证研究的方向。