Sermo-mercial: Greek for Commercials in the Pulpit

I don’t know how I missed this article (or reprint) from Out of Ur titled Product Placement in the Pews … but it’s fascinating and scary!

I’ve written about how companies are now marketing to churches in full force, and particularly to pastors, but now there’s even a term coined for product placement in sermons: sermo-mercial.

(Note: Evidentally, this term is a couple years old, so I missed the boat.)

But that’s the scary part.

I think we can collectively say together: The pulpit is not for sale.

Or rather, it should NOT be for sale.

It’s already been bought, right? The initials J.C. are carved in them.
But increasingly companies are realizing that if there product is mentioned in the pulpit on Sunday, they have a built-in marketing segment of people — behold, the evangelical church — and an endorsement by its earthly spiritual leader — behold, the pastor.

The name of the church marketing game? Leverage these huge social networks of customer potential for the bottomline.

We call it (her) the church.

According to the article, these groups have successfully done church marketing:

  • The Republican Party did it in the elections of 2000 and 2004.
  • Mel Gibson (i.e. Hollywood) did it with The Passion of the Christ. (Think also of The Chronicles of Narnia, Rocky Balboa, and The Nativity Story.)
  • Rick Warren and Zondervan did it with The Purpose-Driven Life.

I won’t talk about politics here. But I’ll say the last two in that list are extremely impressive from a marketing perspective to me … and they made valuable contributions to the church and the kingdom.

That’s healthy church marketing … but when we cross the line and accept what amounts to “bribes” or endorsement money for those in the pulpit, there is a serious compromise happening.

… and I can’t think that the Lord is or would be happy about it. Do you?

Lesson to be learned for church marketing: Companies can (and should) provide value (in the form of their good and services that benefit the church) without sacrificing the Gospel, the mission, biblical preaching, doctrine, unity and purity of the church, etc.

January 3, 2007 · Filed Under Church Marketing

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3 Responses to “Sermo-mercial: Greek for Commercials in the Pulpit”

  1. Nathan Rice on January 3rd, 2007 1:40 pm

    Cory,

    What about something like this:
    I was at NewSpring Church right after halloween during their Lord of the Rings series (on marriage, sex, and dating) and his “How to have an affair” message, and Perry used the example of how he would never eat a King Size pack of Resse Peanut butter cups because of how fattening they are. He then said that as a contrast to that, his wife puts out bowls of those bite-size cups in their house and he will unconsciously eat so many of them that he ends up intaking more calories from the bite size that he would if he had eaten the king size! His point was that we sometimes do little things that end up accumulating into an big things before we realize how much it is hurting us.

    I said that to say this:
    What would you say if a pastor decided to use that illustration before hand, contacted Hershey company and told them about it, and Hershey offered the church money in return as a “thank you” of sorts? Would you consider that to be crossing the line?

    P.S. I’m not saying Perry did that, in fact I’m sure he didn’t, but it was the only thing I could think of.

    Nathan
    http://www.nathanrice.org/

  2. Cory Miller on January 3rd, 2007 1:58 pm

    Nathan, sharp point, thanks …

    I think one of the principles I’d go by with this issue is … anything that may taint what I say, or influence it (negatively), or cause the main thing (Gospel, biblical preaching/teaching) to not be the main thing … that’s a problem.

    But I like your point … after the fact, not bad … before the fact, not good, I think. This all speaks to motivations too. And as always, we need to guard and protect our hearts and open it and our motivations to accountability.

    One of my issues with this debate is that … preachers have so limited time anyway in a given week to present the message in a relevant way … they compete with attention spans, time pressures, whatever … and then to throw something like this in the mix … it’s dangerous … we need to be careful and discerning.

  3. Nathan Rice on January 3rd, 2007 2:39 pm

    I was hoping you’d say that :-)
    I agree whole heartedly! I think it would be darn near impossible to not end up planning such occurrences “before the fact”. One post-hoc payment for a plug every once in a while might be ok, but I believe the slope is a tad too slippery.

    We’re just not equipped to handle (at least I wouldn’t be) the temptation, should it become easy or accessible, regardless of the initial benefits.

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