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    Is the Christian Values Network a Good Thing?

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    I can go either way on this one.

    On the positive, if our people are going to spend money at Best Buy or Target, then why not take advantage of helping fund ministry while our people get the same price?

    On the negative, it is cumbersome for people (they have to jump through hoops); the church has to promote it (which takes away from our main mission); and God has provided all the funding the church needs already in their wallets… why should the church have to partner with a ‘values network’ or Best Buy to get money that is already there to fund His work?

    Sounds like I came up with more negatives than positives… what’s YOUR take?  The Christian Values Network… a good thing?

    Read more here...

    Todd


    Former Republican Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is set to endorse the Christian Values Network and their program to help churches during the country's financial crisis.

    According to the Christian Post, the Christian Values Network is a free service that allows members to shop online at nearly 900 popular internet retailers who in turn pay a referral fee for every purchase made by a CVN member. A portion of the referral fee is given to the ministry of choice indicated by the CVN member.

    According to Huckabee, "“I believe God has established Christian Values Network for this unique time and place to help ministries in lean times... They are providing a very simple and practical solution: using people’s everyday Internet purchases to support their chosen organization. I understand these are tough times. Christian Values Network is a special opportunity for people to continue giving without affecting their capability to tithe or provide for their family.”

    This idea is barely new... different iterations of this have been around forever. But is it a good idea?

    Comments

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    1. Pat on Mon, March 30, 2009

      Todd, I agree with your negatives for this idea and could add one more.  Does this also take money away from local businesses that are also struggling during this economy.  Although, it is tempting to think that a portion of the proceeds from the sales would go to the church.  But I’m just not sure this is something we’d want to endorse.  Do we really want to encourage consumerism?  On the other hand, people are going to shop whether we endorse it or not.

    2. jack on Mon, March 30, 2009

      Just got a calling from CVN last week wanting our church to partner with them - put them off for right now.  Tend to agree with you…

    3. PastorRick on Mon, March 30, 2009

      I’m falling on the negative side of this too. Funding by proxy always leaves me queasy.

    4. Husker Mountain on Sun, May 17, 2009

      Todd,


      Thanks for your comments, and I admit that I was skeptical at first.  However, I’ve come to see this is as an (almost) entirely good thing.


      This is truly a win-win-win-win situation for everyone involved.


      If there’s anything I could fix, it would be to change the name.  “Christian Support Network” would be more fitting.  I don’t know how “Values” necessarily has anything to do with the whole picture.

    5. Gephory on Wed, July 22, 2009

      Cloud Services are interesting. I come from a hardware background, where the way they got you to buy things was to make it bigger, better, smaller, lighter, more, or whatever 1Y0-264 dumps. This still works; people buy objects, they are considered more valuable than services somehow, but objects alone are close to commodities, so the next big game will be to make hardware the service 1z0-040 dumps. Like the iPod. People buy iPods because the object is cool, but also, where the value lies is in the iTunes library and playlists and ratings and so the lock-in is there.


      Then you have the Amazon Kindle. That’s a traditional service provider starting to make hardware. We will see more of these kinds of objects, and I see a giant opportunity to figure out how, for example, Asus will build services around their Eee PC, whether that’s backup or app shops or extra storage. So they sell you the object and then they can sell you the extra services 1z0-042 dumps. The mobile operators are a great example of that. They will figure out how to upsell you to different services.

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