Saturday, February 24, 2007

Little Foxes in the Vineyard

I've blogged on this before...the mailings from FoxFaith that include posters and promotional DVDs, Christian study guides and swag to encourage my congregants to go see the crushingly mediocre pablum that's being pitched as "Christian Film."

But now they've upped the ante. I...and undoubtedly thousands of other pastors around the country..just got a letter offering my church a DirectTV satellite system so that I can preview their releases from the comfort of my own office. Better yet, they're offering me a piece of the action. If I get my congregants to buy movie tickets from their online service, my congregation will get a cut. Think of the things you can do with that money! Choose any charity! Give to the poor!

I went to the FoxFaithChurch website to get more information, and watched their earnest pitchman tell me about how this whole thing is a ministry for him...a ministry to the Christian marketplace, which, he tells us, has been discovered by studios who finally realize that Christians have money to spend. Well...yay for us.

It got me to wondering if there are branding possibilities here. If, say, I was to get the ruling elders of my church to change our congregation's name to, say, the First FoxFaithChurch of Bethesda, would they be willing to pony up even more goodies?