Superstition Springs Community Church gets the prize here. They were the first link we received of a church to tying a marketing campaign to the presidential campaign, and thus the deluge begins.
Beginning now and running through the election, they’re running a “Jesus for President” series (not to be confused with Shane Claiborne’s Jesus for President), along with a microsite, anewplatform.com. Their premise is simple: “A new platform, a new set of issues, a new way to live … delivered on a mountainside 2,000 years ago.” It’s a look at Jesus’ run for office on the agenda of the Sermon on the Mount. Sounds like a pretty great idea.
One of the most interesting facets of this story, however, is an article in a local paper. If you read the article online, you can view readers’ reaction to the campaign. Some is positive, but a lot is negative. Is the negative reaction to church marketing here a vocal minority or a bellwether of public opinion?
kyle
August 4, 2008
I would be fairly comfortable calling most of that chatter a ‘vocal minority’- though I am increasingly interested in these “churches shouldn’t X, they should Y” opinions from non-church people, oftentimes it seems very offensive to some that a church should even be in the paper (or have a billboard, etc) and their criticism reflects that.
Hall
August 7, 2008
I think the campaign is refreshing and absolutely DOES NOT SUCK! It’s about time someone uses the current climate and ties in the relevant message of Jesus in a way that draws people who don’t wear sweater vests for a living!
Joy
November 23, 2008
Definitely a vocal minority. 10 of the negative comments came from the exact same person. 3 of the positive comments came from 2 other people challenging that negative person.
I sat there through the entire 9 week series.
The church tied it to the campaign because they wanted to use that time in our country to teach the community to have a heart like Jesus’ when we think about who we are in this world, country, community etc..
Listen to it for yourself here:
http://www.mission68.org/teachings/