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Church Spam

Orginally published on Wednesday, October 19, 2005 at 11:00 AM
by Todd Rhoades

Pastor Jeff brings up the subject of ‘church spam’ over at his blog… church spam is, of course, unsolicited emails from churches. I know I get some of these as well... Pastor Jeff writes…

Now, I hate spam because I hate scams of all kinds, but this actually takes the cake! A friend of mine sent me a copy of an email he received from a church he?s never heard of telling him about a new sermon series.

For some reason, I?m ok with direct mail (because the advertiser is paying to have the mail delivered), but I really don?t like unsolicited email (aside from the inconvenience, the recipient is the one who?s paying to receive the ad in the form of fees to the internet service provider).

Forwarded by Michael Estes/Administration/SUPNET on 10/13/2005 09:03 AM

?North Park Church?
Subject: Has your Identity been Stolen?
Please respond to

IDENTITY THEFT

A weekend teaching series at North Park Church

We can lose our identities - a sense of who we really are. Join us October 16th as we kick off the four-week series, ?Identity Theft?. We?ll explore how we can recover if we?ve been ?Robbed by Relationship,? ?Mugged by the Mirror?, ?Stolen by Success?, or ?Pickpocketed by the Past.?

ROBBED BY RELATIONSHIP - OCT 16
MUGGED BY THE MIRROR - OCT 23
STOLEN BY SUCCESS - OCT 30
PICKPOCKETED BY THE PAST - NOV 6

North Park is one of Carmel?s newer churches, committed to serving families, loving kids, and communicating the hope of God?s message in creative ways.For more information, go to http://www.northparkwired.com

email:

If you would like to sign up for periodic informational emails about North Park, click here. North Park Church - 500 E. Carmel Drive, Carmel IN 46033 If you no longer wish to receive messages from North Park Church please press here.

FOR DISCUSSION: What do you think of a church sending out unsolicited emails? Have you done it before? What has been the response?

This post has been viewed 503 times so far.

TRACKBACKS: (0) There are 6 Comments:

Posted by

Wednesday, October 19, 2005 at 1:30 PM

Just provide a link to unsubscribe. That’s what every other decent organization does as a courtesy to remove e-mail addresses of persons who do not want the information. I don’t see the point of getting bent out of shape about it, though. Marketers do this all the time so why should a church be singled out as ineligible to distribute information via e-mail? If you want to get a law passed to prohibit everyone from doing this, go for it. Until then, it’s perfectly acceptable action. Maybe I don’t like the clutter of junk mail, but I just dispose of it the same way I do SPAM.
Posted by Michael Rew

Thursday, October 20, 2005 at 12:34 AM

That church’s Web hosting provider should be contacted about the email. Maybe if they temporarily lost their Web site, they would think twice about being so annoying again.
Posted by Jason Fletcher

Thursday, October 20, 2005 at 6:32 AM

This was definitely a poor decision by the church. Though it might not be technically illegal it is socially unacceptable. We should always strive to take the high road in spreading the Gospel.
Posted by

Thursday, October 20, 2005 at 12:28 PM

What if one person came to know Christ or one person’s life was renovated because of that series that found out about only by the e-mail. Just a thought.
Posted by Michael Rew

Thursday, October 20, 2005 at 12:32 PM

J.P.: If it is that important, then send a ministry team to the person’s door.
Posted by Tony Myles

Thursday, October 20, 2005 at 2:30 PM

Ironically, they stole this series from Willow Creek. August series, maybe?

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