Why I Decided to Market God in the Digital Age
God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are not just words. They are alive. They shape lives, including my own. Faith can feel close and steady, and other times it slips into the background. That rhythm is part of being human. I did not rediscover God in a church class or in a book. I found Him again through grief, through science, and even through the digital tools of modern life.
This is my journey. A journey of losing faith, finding it again, and now sharing it in a new way through digital marketing. I am not here to give homilies. That is the call of the clergy. My role is different. I use the skills I have built in SEO, psychology, and strategy to help make the Catholic Church easier to find online. Because when people searching for meaning discover the Church, something happens. Hearts open. Faith stirs. And God does the rest.
Losing Faith as a Young Seminarian
I began as a young seminarian, devoted and eager to serve. Faith shaped every part of my life until I turned seventeen. That was when I lost my faith. It was not God who failed me, but men. Seeing abuse within my hometown parish broke something in me. What I thought was unshakable came crashing down. People told me the sins of men should not take away my love for Christ, but at that age, the wound was too deep to heal.
When I entered university, I looked for community but found disappointment. Many Christians I met seemed self-righteous or naive, and I pulled back. The culture of the mid-90s—grunge music, dance clubs, and political correctness (“can’t swear”, “can’t do this”, “can’t say that”) pulled me even further away. For years, Christianity became little more than showing up at Mass on Easter Sunday. I told myself I had moved on, but in truth, I was wandering in exile.
The Secular Years: Fatherhood, Self-Help, and Digital Marketing
By 2012, I had become a father. That new responsibility forced me to grow quickly. I turned to personal development, NLP, and the rising world of digital marketing. I left traditional marketing behind and embraced the internet as a way to connect people and ideas.
From 2017 to 2019, I immersed myself in meditation, philosophy, alchemy, and Eastern spiritual practices. I studied Carl Jung and explored the depths of the psyche and the soul. During this time, I also earned my Master’s in Neuro Linguistics. Yet Christianity remained absent. I called myself spiritual, yet not religious. Sometimes I leaned toward pantheism, gathering wisdom from many traditions, and applying it to whatever spiritual practice I did. Other times, I rested in scepticism, relying on science and physics. After all, I am a really techy guy; anything outside the reality of data, numbers, and money is just not truly real. My search was scattered, but in hindsight, it was preparing me for something greater.
The Pandemic Shift
When the world shut down in 2020, I was stuck at home like everyone else. The streets went quiet, the rhythm of life slowed, and the walls of the house became both my workplace and my world. I kept working in digital marketing, but even that felt different. The constant push for growth and numbers seemed smaller in the face of what was happening around us. My attention began to turn inward.
Family life became my anchor. Meals, conversations, and daily routines took on new weight. I spent long hours with kata, training, and energetic practices. Movement and discipline kept me grounded when the world outside felt uncertain. The stillness of lockdown created space I had not felt in years. At first, I filled it with activity. Over time, that space began to feel like an invitation to look deeper.
Christianity still did not return to me during those months. I was not praying to Christ or opening a Bible. But something was happening beneath the surface. The silence, the discipline, and the focus on inner strength were planting seeds. I did not see it at the time, but those practices were preparing me. They were shaping a foundation that would later allow me to face grief and rediscover God. In those days, I thought I was only training my body and mind. In truth, my soul was being prepared for a transformation I could not yet name.
The Death of My Mother: A Return to Christ
In June 2025, my world collapsed. My mother, my closest ally and the most pious woman I knew, passed away. She was the steady presence in my life, the one who quietly lived her faith in every word and action. Losing her was like having the ground pulled out from under me. My heart broke into fractal pieces. I did not know how to gather, except that I knew I had to carry on.
In our grief, my family and I prepared her funeral, and we prayed the Novena for the Dead. We followed the forty days of prayer, just as generations of Catholics had done before us. At first, I did these things out of duty and love for her. But as the prayers repeated day after day, something began to change. The rhythm of the rosary, the words of Scripture, and the presence of the community all became a balm on my soul.
It was in that rhythm of prayer that I found comfort. Slowly, I rediscovered Jesus. I began to sense the Holy Spirit at work in my shattered heart, piecing me together in ways that philosophy, NLP, and meditation never could. Faith returned, but not as the blind devotion of a teenager. It returned as the conviction of an adult who had walked through disbelief, seen the world, had hit rock bottom many times, studied science, and tested other traditions. I had gone into the wilderness, and now I was being called home.
Looking back, I see that this was no accident. It was God’s timing. My mother’s faith had been the seed. Her prayers all the years of my being in the wilderness of materialism had watered the soil. And in her passing, God used even my grief to draw me back to Him.
An Ai Digital Marketer Of A Small Parish
In our parish, I try to offer the skills I have learned in service to God. The work is simple: caring for a website, preparing content, and keeping the Church visible online for those who are searching. What once belonged to business now becomes a tool for faith. My hope is not to be noticed, but to quietly help open the way for others to encounter Christ.
God does not need marketing. He is the Creator of heaven and earth. But the Church, in this age of social media and artificial intelligence, does need to be seen. A parish cannot welcome if it is hidden. Each article, each video, each prayer posted online is a small doorway for someone who may be seeking. Behind that doorway could be a student, a parent, or a soul carrying silent questions. The work itself is ordinary, but the Holy Spirit is the one who gives it power. Even in these small tasks, God is the one who acts, and I am only the human hand that types on the keyboard and moves the levers to affect the internet.
Why I Call This “Marketing God”
This is not about selling God. It is about helping His Church be seen in a world that is noisy and distracted. The tools of digital marketing that once promoted products can just as well serve the Gospel.
I use the phrase “Marketing God,” but what it really means is service. It is not about me at all. It is about creating small openings where someone searching online might discover the Church and, through it, Christ Himself. If I can help even one person take a step closer to Him, then the work has done its part.
What Comes Next
What if, in the next year, every Catholic parish in Australia could be discovered with a single search? What if seekers scrolling on their phones late at night found not just entertainment, but the Gospel? And what if, by the next quarter, your parish began ranking higher than local competitors, not because of advertising spend, but because the Word was made visible in search results?
Digital evangelisation is not about replacing faith with technology. It is about preparing the ground so that when people search, the Church is there to be found.
Does your team need to learn how to use Ai in marketing? Book your FREE 1:1 consultation today and get started.
Case Study: Marketing a Catholic Parish in the Digital Age
Problem: A Parish Hidden in Plain Sight
St Anthony’s Parish in Marsfield had been serving the community faithfully for generations, but online it was almost invisible. The parish website was outdated, lacked proper search optimisation, and ranked poorly for key searches like “Catholic Church near me.” In an age when most seekers begin their journey online, the parish was at risk of being overlooked by the very people searching for faith, guidance, or community.
Solution: Reframing Digital Marketing as Ministry
The challenge was not to sell God but to help the Church be seen. The approach was to treat digital marketing as evangelisation, an extension of the Great Commission, by ensuring the parish could be discovered online.
The solution focused on four pillars:
- SEO and Website Optimisation – improve titles, descriptions, images, internal linking, and FAQs to boost search visibility.
- Faith-Based Content Creation – produce articles rooted in Scripture, the Catechism, and the teachings of saints, written in a way that seekers could easily understand.
- Authority Building – strengthen the parish’s credibility through diocesan connections, Catholic schools, PR outreach, and backlinks.
- Modern Website Design – upgrade to a clean, mobile-friendly theme that appeals across generations while remaining simple for older parishioners to use.
Execution: Blending Faith and Strategy
- SEO Foundations: Updated metadata, improved internal linking, and optimised site performance.
- Content Strategy: Developed blogs and articles that answered common questions about the Catholic faith while drawing from Scripture and tradition.
- Backlink Building: Created opportunities for mentions across Catholic networks, local schools, and community sites.
- Platform Presence: Strengthened visibility on Google My Business, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube to ensure the parish was consistently discoverable.
- Update the website to a modern website rather than just a notice board of information online.
Results: Creating Digital Doorways to Christ
The parish shifted from being hidden online to establishing a structured, discoverable presence. Search engines began to recognise St Anthony’s as a relevant answer for local faith seekers. Each blog post, each optimised keyword, and each video became a digital doorway through which people could encounter the Catholic Church.
What seemed like ordinary technical work—editing metadata, writing content, updating a theme—became extraordinary in impact. The Holy Spirit worked through these small efforts, transforming them into invitations for seekers to return to Christ.
Lessons Learned
- Visibility is evangelisation. If the parish cannot be found online, seekers cannot be welcomed.
- Marketing is a service. Digital tools are not just for promotion but for connection and mission.
- Small changes create lasting impact. A low-cost website upgrade and consistent SEO can extend parish reach for years.
- Faith and expertise unite. Professional skills, when placed at the service of God, become instruments of ministry.
- Gen Z and Gen Alpha live in the digital world. They are the generation of the internet and smartphones. They never experienced life without them, so the Church must meet them there.
- Scripture remains valid in the modern world. The ancient texts still matter. We must show how they apply in a digital and AI-driven culture so that truth continues to speak with authority.
- The Baby Boomer generation is sunsetting. Many parishioners belong to this group. They too need to encounter God on their phones and computers if that is where they spend their time.
- Gen X carries a bridge role. They remember life before the internet but also understand social media. They are positioned to introduce Christ to their families in both worlds.
- Gen Y brought mental health to the forefront. Millennials were the first generation to embrace the concept of mental health, now shared by Gen Z and Alpha. Spiritual health is deeply tied to mental health, and the Church can meet this need.
- Faith and reason are not opposites. Logic and science are often portrayed as against faith, but in truth, Logos is the precursor of logic. Faith without reason is blind. The Australian culture struggles with this tension, and it is our responsibility to connect the two, where the algorithms of the internet will not.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does God need marketing?
No. God is eternal and unchanging. Marketing does not add to His power. What it does is make His Church visible to those searching online, so that the faithful and the seekers can find a doorway back to Him.
How can the Catholic Church use SEO?
Search engine optimisation makes a parish website easier to find on Google and AI-powered search tools. By improving titles, descriptions, content, and backlinks, the Church becomes more visible when people type questions like “Catholic Church near me” or “What is the rosary?”
Why is digital visibility important for parishes?
Most seekers, especially Gen Z and Gen Alpha, begin their search for meaning online. If a parish cannot be found there, it misses the chance to welcome them. Visibility is evangelisation.
Isn’t faith separate from technology?
Faith and technology are not enemies. Logic and science are born from Logos, the Word. Digital tools are simply modern channels that can carry timeless truth. Even technology was created by God.
Can digital marketing really grow a parish?
Yes. Even simple improvements like updating a website theme, adding blog posts, and optimising for mobile can attract new visitors and re-engage current parishioners. Each action creates a digital doorway to Christ.
A Blueprint for the Church
The story of St Anthony’s Parish shows that any parish, large or small, can thrive online with the right strategy. With prayer, planning, and commitment, the Church can open its doors digitally to those searching for God.
If your parish is struggling to be seen, now is the time to act. Every step taken online is another invitation for someone to rediscover faith.
My journey began with faith, wandered through exile, rediscovered meaning in grief, and found a new mission: using digital marketing to serve the Catholic Church.
If you are searching for God online, may you find Him here. And if you feel called to serve, now is the moment to act. Because when you take one step toward God, He takes ten steps toward you.
Does your team need to learn how to use Ai in marketing? Book your FREE 1:1 consultation today and get started.
About the Author
Crom Salvatera is a digital marketing and mindset mentor with more than 20 years of experience. Today, Crom only takes on clients and projects that bring out the best in people. Alongside his business work, he also dedicates his expertise to serving and helping people find Christ through the digital world. Start your journey today and discover how faith and strategy together can transform lives.
Follow or connect with Crom Salvatera on LinkedIn to get more digital insights.
