What a bizarre church ad...

[Gerald Creasy]

I know you're going to disagree, and I respect it, man honestly I do. But, I watched that story, and I didn't have a problem with it. It isn't my taste, but the party atmosphere it generated was probably a good way to draw people into the study. I didn't see any suggestive behavior, and certainly not any references to anybody else's wife being hot or anything. So, for me, that is a big distinction from the other ad with the we-look-hot church. I know the whole play on words with "Girls Gone Wild" is touchy, maybe even over the top for a lot of people, but you take risks sometimes and you err on the side of turning culture against itself. At least that's the benefit of the doubt I'm giving after watching the YouTube clip Gerald linked to. Now, are they REALLY turning culture against itself? Probably not. If they were, they wouldn't have 1,000 people in attendance, IMO. But, the concept of using something like that, even in that way, using a popular vice-on-video to shove a bootheel in the face of vulgarity and to promote virtue? Yeah, I like that pretty well.

Well the REAL pitiful thing came out a few moths ago, but as I was on sabbatical I could not share it.


It seems thew GirlsGoneWild Reverend -who already has a 2 million dollar home (that's like a 50 million dollar home in Hawaii) has complaints filed against him with the Attorney Generals of something like five or six states.
It seems he ran a roofing company that specialized in clip jobs.
Some of the testimonies of people taken by his business practices were pitiful.

An according to the pastor its ALL: Attacks from the Enemy. Every one of them. In every state.

Yet another instance of the bovine Pentecostal eloi being shystered.

[justsam]

Dolfan, my problem with the "we're the good looking people church" and "Girl's going Wild" is that the church is supposed to come out of the world. I am aware that many in our organization have no idea how to do that and still remain related to the world, but being worldly is not a more virtuous state than being so out of touch with the world that you cannot reach anyone.

And if that "Girls going wild" thing isn't worldliness, then there is no such thing.

God Bless You- Sam Smith

[dolfan]

Gerald, I'm not surprised by that news, but simply because I see clip jobs all the time and preachers of all varieties are just as likely to be on the giving end of a ripoff as anyone. Hey, a Catholic priest has been stalking Conan O'Brien.

PastorSam -- I get your point, and I agree that there's no virtue in copycatting what's hip for its own sake. I'm not sure there's any virtue in copycatting it for other, good purposes. But, and here's where I suppose we differ on it, I do give the benefit of the doubt on almost any approach that states its goal in terms of those "other, good purposes". High risk gets high reward; doing little or nothing gets you nothing. Even failure in high risk carries with the reward of knowing what not to do, or what to do better. Doing nothing or very little doesn't do that. So, I respect entrepreneurialism in church, and I guess that's why I give the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that's misplaced but I'll take that chance.