Riverside Church featured prominently in the news in Melbourne yesterday as a result of the racy title of their current sermon series, “The best sex you’ll ever have”. Responses to the story on The Age newspaper website have mostly been positive, but have ranged from “I think it’s great,” to “Keep the church out of the bedroom!”
The idea of using sex in church marketing is not new, and the current series at Riverside seems to be a copy of similar series run in churches in the US over the past two years. Even the picture advertising the series is a copy. The original idea seems to have come from Granger Community Church, provoking much discussion on the Monday Morning Insight blog two years ago, but the website advertising their series, mylamesexlife.com, is no longer active.
Is any publicity good publicity for a church? I don’t know. A church needs to be a part of the discussion in its local area, rather than being an irrelevant backwater. On the other hand, a church needs to be a place where genuine and authentic community occur, and advertising campaigns which may be perceived as “bait-and-switch” or “playing to the lowest common denominator” may detract from the necessary atmosphere of authenticity.
2 replies on “Is any publicity good publicity?”
Before I answer your question let me pose one myself….isn’t it sad that something given to us as a gift (sex) is considered controversial when discussed by the church? We should be leading the conversation…sex within the boundaries God gave should be the greatest sex around and we should be bold enough to talk about.
BUT…I’m not a huge fan of causing tension simply to create controversy. It’s almost as if we try to offend and I think we need to be very careful on that road. I think it’s good to raise attention and ruffle some feathers…but we need to watch our intent.
As a side note, copying the same idea over and over isn’t original … ‘though shall not steal’ anyone?
John, I was the bestman for the minister of this church, never thought I would see the day he was being a sexpert!