Copper Pointe Church’s WTF banners created a lot of chatter in the comments, ranging from “sickening” to “SMART.” But with all the differing opinions, we thought it was time to poll you and see how our audience felt about the banners. Here are your responses:
Nearly half of you weren’t offended, but you just think it’s a lame gimmick. If you saw these banners, they wouldn’t get much more than an eye roll from you.
The next biggest chunk of you, 27%, weren’t amused either. But you go further, to say that it’s downright offensive, crass and crude. You don’t like churches even implying that sort of language, and if you saw the banners, you’d make a beeline in the other direction.
Finally are the 23% of you who found the stunt clever and cute. You think it’s great that they’re trying to stay relevant, even if it comes with a bit of irreverence. Oh, we forgot! There are also 1% of you that have no idea what WTF means. Be forewarned if you’re easily offended, but since you asked, here is Wikipedia’s definition.
This week, we’re going to talk big money. We want to know: Which church ask did you find the most outlandish? A million dollar airplane? A $5 million bridge? Something else? Visit our home page to let your voice be heard.
Adrian Higgs
September 28, 2010
It would be interesting to know the demographic of those who voted in the poll.
Leaving aside for the moment the (important) issues of morality, ethics and appropriate conduct for followers of Jesus, in terms of the campaign’s value as a marketing exercise, what matters is not what I (or any other thirty/forty/etc-something business person) thinks about it, but how the college-aged target audience react to it. The results seem to speak for themselves on that front.
Looking at it from the perspective of morality, ethics and conduct, perhaps we need to check for planks before picking at motes. Assuming Copper Pointe Church are sharing the gospel with the young adults who respond to these banners, then they are probably well ahead of most of the rest of us. I certainly haven’t shared Jesus with 300 young people recently.
The F word has the power to shock Christians of my generation. It has no such power to shock the target audience of this campaign. If we think that the fact that we are shocked and discomfited by something means we should decry it, then perhaps we should consider what our reaction would be to seeing a living man drenched in blood and sweat, dying nailed to a cross.
Could that have been the work of Almighty God?