Church Sees Growth Surge After Adding Exclamation Point to Name

Orginally published on Friday, September 08, 2006 at 7:24 AM
by Todd Rhoades

BAXTER, Missouri (NN) -- Members of Beulah Church of the Nazarene were discussing cute ways to attract walk-in visitors, when Dylan Smith, a former resident of Hamilton! Ohio made a suggestion that changed everything...

Several longtime members of Beulah Church suggested the use of door hangers or lawn banners announcing the current sermon series, but Smith was convinced that there was an easier way to get the attention of passers-by.

“There are two cities in all of Ohio that are growing; Columbus and Hamilton!. I suggested that passers-by decide on a lark to do something, kind of like stopping to see the world’s largest cement rhinoceros or a building made entirely out of salt. The idea has to be simple and require only minimal literacy to be effective...and that’s exactly what has happened.”

Baxter mayor Paul Preusch explains the community’s perception of Beulah!’s name change. “In a small city like Baxter, things don’t change very much, but when something does change, people take notice. It’s even more remarkable when a church does something that seems clever or cute. People figure that if a church can do something earth-shattering like adding punctuation to its name, then maybe something is happening in that church, and maybe I want to be a part of it.”

While some people checked out the curiosity once, many others have become regular attenders at Beulah! Church of the Nazarene, nearly doubling the size of the church in the past six months.

Dylan Smith sums up the whole phenomenon. “The fact that people are staying and becoming part of our church just proves that we already had a good church, we just needed to give people a little nudge to give us a try. We also got a bunch of free publicity in the local media. All I know is that I’ve seen way more sophisticated gimmicks deliver far less results than this. That’s for sure.”

[THIS STORY IS FROM NAZARENE NOOZ] Be sure to check out their website!

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