Over the past year, we’ve covered three different churches that have made extraordinary asks and how they’ve gone about it. Some, notably, have handled the request more deftly than others, but all have been irksome to at least some commenters. So which of the three got under your skin the most? We asked in last week’s poll, and here are your responses:
Whether it’s the freshness of the topic, the outlandishness of an airplane or the generally poor handling of the request, Rod Parsley’s request for a million dollars for a new airplane didn’t sit well with our readers. 73% of you that responded thought this was the most outlandish church ask we’ve covered in the past year.
Our other churches didn’t even come close to touching this number. 5% of you were most troubled by North Point Community Church’s $5 million dollar bridge (the biggest dollar value we covered), while a lone voter was frustrated by Saddleback’s last-minute budget-balancing ask. To the majority: What was it that helped these two requests sit more peacefully for you?
11% of you weren’t bummed out by any of these requests. You think a church ought to ask for whatever they feel they need, and the rest of us should get the logs out of our own eye before we turn to scorning them. But an equal number are outraged at each ask, wishing instead more churches would just give their cash away outside of their ministry like Courageous Church did.
Plenty of you loved the idea of positive picketing when we discussed it, but will you be putting it into practice? Vote in this week’s poll: Will your church be doing any positive picketing anytime soon?
