Revivals, Singings and other Fundie God Marketing, Challenge

[Lizzy F.]

Dang. I just recently got a "Let us send you free Bible study materials" flyer in the mail. All you had to do was fill out the postcard and send it in. I didn't know about this thread and threw it out.

I get a lot of fundy stuff through the mail. I've even had a preacher call the house to invite me to his church. It's weird how persistent they are.

[pastor's wife]

I'm going to briefly deconstruct these for IFB authenticity:

1. The phrase "God is moving" - pentecostal (true IFBers avoid looking like Pentecostals at all cost!)
2. picture of Christ on the cross - Catholic (we only show outlines of crosses)
3. naming someone a prophet or saying "prophetic" - not IFB
4. talking about miracles - not IFB
5. listing the man's wife's name on equal par with his - not IFB
6. "Church of God" - definitely not IFB
7. General Baptist Convention - isn't this on BJU's banned list?
8. mentioning Holy Ghost or showing fire - pentecostal so IFB tends not to use either
9. having a "silent auction" on the same sign as a revival - that's introducing consumerism and worldliness into the church; where's Jesus with His whip?

I think these are IFB:
1. the first one - Bald Hills Baptist Church (I think my objections to the Pentecostal leanings on their flyer are more of a northern/southern issue.)
2. Bethel Baptist Church - could be, especially since they said, "Special Singing"
3. National God Save America Revival Conference - sounds like it could be since they're KJVO and super patriotic
4. Perry's Spring Youth Rally flyer - now THAT'S a true IFB announcement! Notice even on their advertising for a youth program, they must definitely say TWICE that they're old-fashioned.

I can't tell with the purple and zebra striped one. The colors certainly look Pat Benatar-ish so why aren't they avoiding all appearance of evil?

[briceman]

"our meeting is built on the King James Version of the bible"

Wow, shouldnt it be built on Jesus? Wow...

[pastor's wife]

(05-07-2011 10:40 AM)briceman Wrote:  "our meeting is built on the King James Version of the bible"

Wow, shouldnt it be built on Jesus? Wow...

Yup! Good catch!

And that's what led me to increasing discomfort with the KJVO position: the way it became the focus of everything, the Bible itself, not what the Bible SAID.

(Also I saw a lot of KJVO people who had few fruit of the Spirit in their lives. That was a big warning sign to me too.)

[amyrose5]

What do IFBers have to say about auctions?

When I was at the "interdenominational" Christian school, they tried to have a charity auction to raise money. Several Baptist families were angry about it declaring bidding at an auction to be a form of gambling. Then problems erupted when it was revealed that they would take credit cards for payment at the auction because most of the Charismatic families were certain that credit cards are the "mark of the beast". And, of course, when they realized that several area Catholic schools often held charity auctions as fundraisers, the whole thing was suspect to everyone regardless of denomination.

They never had an auction at all.

[pastor's wife]

@amyrose5, that is funny, although I'm sure highly annoying to whomever was trying to organize fundraisers and get some exciting, fun ideas going.

Schools might be different, but I know that my parents are opposed to ANY buying or selling in church. They wouldn't like a coffee house or a church bookstore. They didn't like people passing their kids' school fundraising stuff around. They'd veto any bake sales or church garage sale. They weren't really comfortable with special speakers/singers hawking their stuff at a back table, although they'd usually let it go because "the laborer is worthy of his hire." They were very sensitive about anything having to do with "selling things" because of Christ's comments to those marketing things in the temple and turning His Father's house into a den of thieves. They also thought that the Biblical way of raising money was to pray and to give, not to get the "world" to support you by selling stuff through the church. (You could sell stuff at your OWN house and then donate that money to the church.)

I don't think they would have thought an auction was gambling (although they never, ever let us do a raffle because that WAS gambling), but they wouldn't have approved of it at church.