It’s not often that an ad campaign by a church ruffles feathers.
Maybe more should along the lines of a recent campaign by the Jefferson Hills Church in suburban St. Louis. It certainly got attention, though not all of it pleasant.
To spread the word about a series of lessons that began Easter Sunday, the church put up the four billboards along Highway 55, which runs through Jefferson County.
The messages were from the devil.
One billboard read: “Jefferson Hills Church sucks,” and another: “I was robbed at Jefferson Hills Church” and another “Boycott Jefferson Hills Church.” The fourth one read: “I hate Jefferson Hills Church.” Each of the billboards directed people to the web site SatanHates.com.
That's pretty testy copy for a church to sponsor, and lot of folks in the county are in a bunch over it.
“The negative reaction is mostly coming from other church leaders, and a lot from other Christians. They’re offended the church would do this,” says Ben Gonzales, teaching pastor at Jefferson Hills.
“But what’s interesting is we talk to teachers at schools and they’re saying the teenagers can’t stop talking about this. For us that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Gonzales says the main goal wasn’t to promote the church but rather to promote Jesus, and that only about 15 percent of the response to the billboards was negative.
“Every denomination is in decline right now, and so we thought we needed to change that,” he says. “If we have to be controversial, that’s what we’ll do.”
He says the idea was actually first executed by Cedar Creek Church near Toledo, Ohio. Jefferson Hills contacted Cedar Creek and asked if it could use the idea, and the Ohio church was more than willing to help.
“In the St. Louis area there’re a lot of churches, so they told us, ‘Be ready for people to react,’” Gonzales says. The campaign was picked up by three local TV newscasts, as well as various newspapers in the area.
