United Pentecostal Church of Harvey Pays $25 to First-time Visitors
Last Sunday the United Pentecostal Church of Harvey offered $25 to the first 75 first-time visitors at each of its two Sunday services.
You can read more about their offer on their site and in a local newspaper.
We were curious to know how it went.
I called the church office today and Debbie Favel was kind enough to tell me about the response the church got.
Debbie said the church was pleased: about 38 people came because of the offer. None of these people are currently church goers although some may have had some involvement in church in their past.
Many of the visitors came forward for prayer during the service. The church offered each of them the opportunity to participate in a 12 week one-on-one Bible study and many have accepted.
- What do you think about encouraging people to visit a church by paying them?
- (If you attend church) would your church consider it?
Comment by: jim
1 06/28/06 3:11 PM | Comment Link |I (obviously) think this is brilliant and should be imitated by churches all over America. Iplan to spread this story
Comment by: Jim
2 06/29/06 8:12 AM | Comment Link |I think this is brilliant. And by “brilliant,” I mean totally stupid. Maybe we can have a lucky random communion winner, “You got the lucky wafer!”
I totally remember reading about the early church buying off the Greeks to get them to church. What a great model!
Seriously though, this seems like lazy evangelism to just pay somebody. Money is what makes many churches seem less genuine, so when a church gets recognized only through money, it doesn’t seem like a good lead-in. Why don’t you show the community Jesus instead of money?
Comment by: ’Mas
3 06/29/06 8:57 AM | Comment Link |Jim -
I’m sure this is not the only program the church has as outreach to the community.
Most unsaved people have the impression that churches are only out to steal your money and some of the TV evangelists lend a lot of credibility to that notion. To offer a no-strings-attached sum of money as an inducement to listen to the Gospel is a means to reverse that thinking and serve the community. If I’d stumbled upon an offer like that before I was saved, I might have taken them up on it. I’ve endured long sales pitches in order to have a free hotel stay or other travel perk.
Will everyone served in other ways in the community come to know Christ? I think we can agree that no evangelistic effort will yield 100% results. Neither will this. It’s not a bait-n-switch, but rather a statement that the church values the time of the listener enough to offer to compensate them. SOunds like a $1,000 well spent to me.
Comment by: Helen
4 06/29/06 9:22 AM | Comment Link |Jim, did you see that this church offered each visitor who came the opportunity to do a 12 week one-on-one Bible study with someone from the church?
Isn\’t that showing them Jesus?
Comment by: Jim
5 06/29/06 9:40 AM | Comment Link |Since we spend garish amounts of money to put up buildings with the motive supposedly being that we want people to visit - I do not see why using a very small amountof money to bring people to church is a misuse of funds. We use money all the time trying to reach people - this is just another more direct , easy to understand and much more transparent process than the building approach.
Comment by: Jim
6 06/29/06 9:41 AM | Comment Link |Yes Helen - Since the church was paying people to pay attention they had every right to offer them other methods of following up
Comment by: Helen
7 06/29/06 9:57 AM | Comment Link |Jim, I agree - I was responding to the other Jim (this is a little confusing! :))
Comment by: The other Jim
8 06/29/06 12:35 PM | Comment Link |Jim, I disagree with the approach of building garrish buildings as well. I don’t think we should “use money all the time” to reach people.
Also making disciples of Christ is not about ROI or success rates. Even if this plan “worked” I would consider it the wrong approach because it introduces an ugly precident.
Mas, I get your point, but when a church offers money to guests it reinforces the idea to me that money seems to be important to this church.
Helen, I applaud the 12 week offer. That sounds awesome.
My whole point is that the only time Jesus got really pissed off was when the temple (church) became a place for profit, where money was exchanged. I feel the nature of Christ is to move away from money as much as possible. Money should be brought up in church member meetings. As far as outreach goes, I think it is a TOTALLY wrong approach.
I think this church has a good reason for this approach, I just believe it does more harm than good for the church. There might be people that come to the church, get their money and become saved and that’s great. However, there will be other people like me who see this on the surface as the church messing around with money again and it sounds like a bait-and-switch. Whether it is or not, that perception can cause more harm and distancing than the lives saved through it.
Comment by: Helen
9 06/29/06 1:22 PM | Comment Link |The Bible says that the love of money, not money itself, is the root of all evil.
Isn\’t a church who is willing to give money away, showing that they don\’t love money, which is a good thing?
Comment by: The other Jim
10 06/29/06 2:01 PM | Comment Link |Helen,
You are totally right with your point. I just think a better shepard of money would be to feed the poor, support those in need, not just handing out money on a first come, first serve basis.
Comment by: Helen M.
11 06/29/06 2:09 PM | Comment Link |Jim, those do sound like good uses of money.
But - when people criticized the woman who poured the perfume over Jesus’ feet, ‘wasting’ what could have been given to the poor, Jesus defended her instead of agreeing with them.
What seems like waste to some of us isn’t necessarily waste as far as Jesus is concerned.
Comment by: The other Jim
12 06/29/06 2:27 PM | Comment Link |I love that story that you mention Helen, but I don’t see how that applies to this story. The point I always got out of that story was this woman was giving all to Jesus. That she was showing extravagant love to Christ giving all of herself.
This expression seems to be a ploy, some new technique to get people into church. It doesn’t feel to me that it is a direct expression of giving all to Christ and not just using the expensive perfume, but also her tears.
Now, I apologize if this was the church’s intent. I just wanted to give you an idea how this may be perceived by a cynical public and as a person like myself who loves Jesus and the church but has seen the church do some crazy things just to get people’s attention. It got my attention, but in a very distasteful way.
Comment by: Helen M.
13 06/29/06 4:01 PM | Comment Link |(The Other) Jim, I respect your opinion. Thanks for sharing it.
Comment by: marvin
14 07/14/06 7:29 PM | Comment Link |I THINK IT WAS GREAT ,IT BROUGHT PEOPLE IN CHURCH, THAT MIGHT NEVER HAVE COME. IT GAVE THEM A CHANGE TO HEAR THE GOSPAL.