God used a burning bush. Churches try free gas cards.

[FernBell]

On Black Friday, Tracy Larson plans to arrive at area stores by 5 a.m. His end game is not the latest electronic gadget or toy. He wants souls.

Larson and a group of volunteers will try to reach early bird shoppers in southern Pasco County and New Tampa on Friday by proffering bottles of Sunny D and honey buns, gifts that come with a printed message: "You look too hungry to pass up. This is our way of showing God loves you. Victorious Life Church."

Gone are the days when a simple verbal invitation was enough to entice people to church. Now, highly calculated marketing campaigns using elements such as direct mail, television and Internet advertisements, free gifts and guerrilla marketing aim to lure a jaded, desensitized public to the pews.

"You will not reach a community from behind your pulpit," said Larson, the Wesley Chapel church's evangelism and outreach pastor. "The Bible says very specifically that we're to go into the highways and the hedges and compel them to come in. That's the whole concept."

In November alone, Larson expects to spend $10,000 on such outreach gifts, including 22,000 branded candy canes for Christmas. In all, Victorious Life dedicates 11 percent of its multimillion-dollar budget to marketing efforts, Larson said.

Critics say that many church marketing efforts are too worldly, slightly manipulative and could produce shallow, what-have-you-done-for-me-lately believers.

More at link:

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/11/19/Tampabay/God_used_a_burning_bu.shtml
--------------------------------------------
EDIT: COPYRIGHT. PLEASE POST ONLY 4 PARAGRAPHS
FROM THE COPYRIGHTED NEWS SOURCE PER DU RULES.

[Deja Q]

1. Given that the problems start at the top,

there is SOME justification in the "what-have-you-done-for-me-lately" folks. I said "some", not "total".

In a society, we all have to work with each other. And too many have forgotten that. Yes, we need to pull up by our own bootstraps too, but the balance of the two needs to be maintained and over the last ~30 years or so the balance is definietly shifting from the "society" part. Margaret Thatcher, a big proponent of the de-evolving, said "there is no such thing as society: only individual men, women, and families." Folks like her have not helped the problem.

[Ian David]

2. Beware of accepting snacks from churches

[NC_Nurse]

3. BWAHAHAHA!

I can't imagine why we'd have a "jaded, desensitized public".

Could it be the constant parade of hypocritical un-Christian RW fundie a'holes all over the news?

I'm glad they're having to spend their ill-gotten gains on helping a few non-believers.

[radfringe]

4. when I was a kid and out trick-treating on Halloween

we went to this one house - instead of giving out a "treat" they gave us a bible verse on a card. The card also said that if we memorize the bible verse and come back to their house and recite it they would give us some candy...

the only thing that card did was to have this particular house crossed off of the following year's trick-treat route..


more to the point - how faithful are the faithful when you have to bribe them to show up?

[sandnsea]

7. In my father's day

That would have been soap on the windows. You didn't go trick or treating without a couple of bars of soap!

[AZCat]

5. Promoting the old "carrot" idea now, I see.

The "stick" of eternal damnation (and social pariah-ism a la "The Scarlet Letter") wasn't working well enough? I wonder why...

[salin]

6. conversion by honeybun... *snicker*

I guess what I find amazing is the idea that sunny D and honeybuns, and candycanes would lead to a religious "awakening" or conversion.

[Perky]

8. OK I need to chime in on this as a Christian

One the one hand, it can definitely be seen as shallow and self-serving and can produce converts by the lowest common denominator.


But her is the flip side. People accuse CHristians of pushing their belieffs on other and being Bible-thumpers. The term is Servant Evangelism.


And it can take on many forms"

We used to free Christmas wrapping at the local mall... We never pushed the Gospel at anyone, we just simply said we wanted to be a blessing to people during the Holiday. We let people know whoe wer were but there was no sales pitch....(we actually stopped doing that because a "christmas store" complained that they were losing money from their own Christmas gift-wrapping offer. We offered to buy thier stock as a way of compromise,,,but they said no thanks.. so we wound up shutting down our free service.

We have given away car washes and free sodas, we have raked leaves and shoveled snow. The message is always meant to be inviting not pushy and get to know our neighbors a little better.

If someone shows up at our Church we do not takle them and force them to watch "Left Behind" drivel. We simply invite them to hang out see what we are about and invite them to a small group/Bible study.

Bible thumping does not work...Folks do not like it. Servant Evangelism is not "bait and switch" it is simply a means to introduce people to a community of believers.