I’ve been collecting a few links over the past few weeks as church stories caught my attention, and in case anyone wasn’t quite sure, here are three ways not to market your church.
- Fall into a scandal resulting in a $600 million payout.
- Have a member smuggle $28,000 from the collection plate.
- Embezzle over a million dollars from the church you pastor.
There’s not much humor in these stories, and there’s not too much to say, but there is a little bit of a silver lining. In the final story, all the money was recovered, and so far, over $300,000 has been sent to global missions.
I guess it was less of a smuggling and more of a savings account. The two who stole the money held onto it for the church, and when the church got it back, it was like a big payoff. And they decided to do good with that money.
A principle here? These articles show that how you handle tragedy and injustice are far more important than the tragedies and injustices themselves. Everyone in the world who isn’t a member of your church is watching to see what you do when faced by tragedy–take the opportunity to do good.
