Westwinds Church in Jackson, Mich. held a Porn Weekend this past week. The festivities included a presentation by Craig Gross of xxxchurch.com, a screening of the anti-pornography documentary Missionary Positions, and three billboards that said “Porn Weekend,” the dates, and the church’s web site.
You can imagine the flack the church received. The Audio Collective podcast covers the Porn Weekend, including statements from Westwinds pastor Vince Beresford during Easter sunday and a follow-up story with several interviews.
Hats off to Westwinds for addressing the issue of pornography that most churches refuse to talk about. You can learn a lot about marketing from the approach Westwinds took (I’ll let you debate the “Porn Weekend” billboards), especially the importance of responding to publicity. Westwinds worship leader John Voelz explained that the church received most of the flack from churched people, but didn’t receive any suggestions for better ways to confront pornography–suggestions they gladly would have considered. You can check out John’s blog for the inside story on Porn Weekend. (link via Todd Rhoades)
Joel Parsons
April 5, 2005
Soooooo good . . . . .
Oh, I would love to be at the church meeting we’d have a few months later if we ever tried that at my church . . . .
I can see the tennis club members dying of embarrassment that the church actually attached itself to something like that.
andy
April 6, 2005
This brings back echoes of, “This man can’t be from God, he dines with the sinners and the tax collectors.”
The trailer for “Missionary Positions” features many people from the porn industry seeming to be initially quite amused by XXXChurch.com. I wonder if the same was true of your typical ‘low-life’ who met Jesus. More power to these guys.
cryptblade
April 8, 2005
It seems some folks here like this Porn Weekend. I don’t.
Again, it’s gimmicky. What’s the message, what’s the purpose? Was this an open event or for church members only? If this was an open event – WHAT WAS THE PURPOSE? How are people suppose to witness and evangelize when you have a gimmicky image that says “Jesus Loves Porn Stars”. Do you realize – that one of the biggest pornography turn ons is a “good girl” turned bad or a “good girl” who’s a slut on the inside? In fact, do you know that there are plenty of men who are so turned on by that thought that they join churches to meet women? And women do the same thing thinking they can finally find a “good man” These are real issues and a porn weekend like that can easily invite more of these kinds of wolves in sheeps clothing, infiltrating the church.
Why would a church need to address pornography in such a fashion? Where are the ministries to help people address these issues? Where are the mens, womens, and singles ministries for this? It think that should be the first line of defense before resorting to this kind of gimmick.
I applaud the xxxchurch and missionary positons folks for having the heart to reach out to these porn workers. When you see a porn film, it can be a lustful turn-on. But when you think about and see the behind the scenes of it all, you can’t help be wonder – do these people really find any good in themselves for their line of work?
KG
April 14, 2005
Sweet, we’re doing this at our church this upcoming Sunday. http://www.diveintoflood.com
Jonathan
November 16, 2006
Well, first of all, this site’s own ideas on church marketing are completely misdirected and illogical. The fact that you even support Westwinds Baptist in their Porn Weekend at all leaves no room for explanation. Read Romans 12:2 over and over again and tell me how you can apply that to ‘Porn Weekend’ or even the idea behind XXXChurch.
Secondly, the term “church marketing”, what does that even mean? Why even bring in businessy terms to the Church? What’s the point? Oh yeah, that’s right, to draw people in. Afterall, Jesus always had his “marketing team” with him every time He wanted to “draw” people to Him. I keep forgetting that all the “modern seeker-sensitive” movement wants to do is to make the “church” building comfortable to the world. How can we get ‘them’ in ‘here’? Hmm, well, whatever it takes right? Wrong!
Jesus always went out with His disciples. And they never went out to seek numbers or results to prove successful “church growth”. The became fishers of men to obey their Master and to bring men to Christ through Repentance & Faith.(Mark1:15) The only way to grow the “Church” is to go out and evangelize the world like Jesus did. Evangelism and true Growth through salvation is never inviting people to a church building or creating another program to market them in. If you want true “marketing”, the only thing you need is God’s Word. I’m sure you disagree because it seems you want to be relevant to the culture. But God’s Word never changes and is relevant forever.
I humbly pray and hope your ministry considers your purpose and your methods. Because the message is the most important followed by the method of producing or conveying that message. But if the method is unbiblical or is hard to differentiate to the world; or worse, it causes the message to be compromised, than it destroys all effects.