When Church Marketing Sucks

March 17, 2008 by

Any church marketers out there looking for a job involving a healthy dose of damage control? Check out these couple of churches.

  • Trinity United Church of Christ. Barack Obama’s church is in some hot water. (We discussed his views on church marketing earlier.) This week, his pastor made it a point to violate one of the basic rules of church marketing (and the law): Don’t endorse a candidate. He decided to endorse Obama often from the pulpit, and now the IRS is considering revoking their tax-exempt status. Oops!
  • Unnamed Daphne, Alabama church. Officials are thinking an outbreak of E. coli in three Alabamans might have come from meat at a church cookout in Daphne, Alabama. The lesson here? It sounds silly, but in reality, burned burgers are the safe choice at your church cookout. It’s a big liability to let just anyone cook meat for people visiting with you, and giving them a disease? Bad marketing.
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Joshua Cody


Josh Cody served as our associate editor for several years before moving on to bigger things. Like Texas. These days he lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife, and you can find him online or on Twitter when he's not wrestling code.
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5 Responses to “When Church Marketing Sucks”

  • dave
    March 17, 2008

    This week, his pastor made it a point to violate one of the basic rules of church marketing (and the law): Don’t endorse a candidate. He decided to endorse Obama often from the pulpit, and now the IRS is considering revoking their tax-exempt status.

    Not quite… the IRS is investigating UCC because of a speech Obama gave at a church conference. They are not, that we know of, investigating Trinity UCC because of Rev. Wright’s statements.


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  • David Sinclair
    March 17, 2008

    I once had a cup of coffee from our church’s hospitality table. Only to find that some kids had spiked it with Visene. Made for a difficult morning of teaching Sunday School.
    Thought of telling them, but our church doesn’t take kindly to outside advice.
    I once had a cup of coffee from our church’s hospitality table. Only to find that some kids had spiked it with Visene. Made for a difficult morning of teaching Sunday School.
    Thought of telling them, but our church doesn’t take kindly to outside advice.
    <-Cooked Pittsburg style please.


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  • RED
    March 17, 2008

    David, you really should have reported the Visine business — if not to the police, then at least to the church, certainly. Using tetrahydrozoline to spike a person’s food or drink is a crime. Second-degree assault, in most cases.


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  • Tim Cote
    March 17, 2008

    Good BBQ’s start with good liability insurance. Make sure your policy covers this type of event before you stage it. Sending your BBQ’ers to your states food handlers class is a good idea too.


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  • deWeb
    March 29, 2008

    man, my first response was to laugh about the food poisoning and your commentary: “bad marketing.” but the more i think about it, the more of a nightmare that turns into. good looking out!


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