Church Marketing Sucks

You know what’s weird? Seeing your own church mentioned in the newspaper. My church landed in the St. Paul Pioneer Press on Monday, and I stumbled across it today thanks to Christianity Today‘s Weblog.

Our church has been in the midst of the turmoil created by the General Convention of the Episcopal Church in 2003. This year our congregation has finally come to terms with it and started to take some action. The article basically covers the fact that our church has joined the Anglican Communion Network and has no plans to leave the Episcopal Church.

For those of you not familiar with all the goings on in the Episcopal Church (and I count myself in that group), it comes down to the messy politics that you can’t avoid when you try to unite a group of believers. It’s very emotional and divisive, and has the potential to be ugly.

But what I love is that the article quotes our rector, senior warden, a member who disagreed with the outcome, and the rector from another church–and it doesn’t read like a soap opera. It’s not full of hate and anger. It’s not full of finger pointing. You can tell there is some tension (fears of becoming an “uptight church”?), but I think you can tell that this messy ordeal has been handled with grace and love, which is exactly the perspective I have from the pew. And for that to come across in a newspaper article is rather commendable.

This should also be a warning to any church that your internal politics could end up in the newspaper.