What would your church do if it were robbed?

I'm not talking about something minor, like somebody stealing silverware out of the church kitchen. What would you do if your church were almost completely cleaned out?

That happened to Kinetic Church earlier this year when a trailer containing most of the church's possessions was stolen. What did the congregation do in response? They launched a massive campaign involving billboards and online video in an attempt to... get the thief to come to church. Their message to the thief: hey, we forgive you, and we'd love it if you stopped in at our church.

Here's a Youtube video from the pastor, addressed to the thief:

What do you think? Could you picture your church responding like that to a thief or vandal? If your church has ever been hit hard by a crime, how did the congregation respond?

(I suppose it's possible it was all a clever ruse to ambush the thief as he entered the church foyer... but we'll give Kinetic Church the benefit of the doubt. More info and links at Church Marketing Sucks.)

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Comments (6)

The arsonist who burned our church down in '02 lives across the river in the next state, we've heard.
The question has been put to us, "If he came back, could you receive him?"
And the answer is, "If he's truly repented, and the church so votes, sure."
God's forgiveness is unlimited, and we'd certainly let that be our guide.

"If he's truly repented and the church so votes". Yikes.

Is it forgiveness if you have to take a vote? If you make the person jump through hoops? Does he have to wear a scarlet "A" while everybody fills in their ballots?

Catch me coming back? Fat chance.

Back last year our church was broken in to; mostly vandalized with a few things stolen. While we didn't go to this extream we did try and come along side the two kids that broke in; going to their court dates and trying to provide options for their community service. Hopefully through it all we were able to show them the love and forgiveness of Christ. They never showed up on a Sunday but that wasn't the point.

This is somewhat similar. Our church was tagging last weekend (vandalized) so on Sunday, we went out on the street and tagged back that Jesus loved him.

It was a great way to turn around a bad situation into something really positive

http://bigearcreations.blogspo...

Since this very gracious response, I heard about another church trailer that got robbed and how that church responded COMPLETELY differently. I read about it over at CMS:

http://www.churchmarketingsuck...

I think I've read enough to where I'm moved to respond. Let me say first, that both churches handled the theft completely wrong. One just had a bettter package around it. Looking at the billboard in the picture shows me the bitterness of the church over such a matter. Can we remember that nothing on this earth is ours in the first place? Everything belongs to God to begin with and so the thief really stole God's stuff and it's his place to take action on the person or persons responsible. Second, I would like to say that the kinetic church were poor stewards of God's time and money for launching the campaign. Billboards are not cheap. Whatever cash they used to produce videos, print publications, TV spots, billboards could have gone to replacing the stolen items, or more importantly gone to people who needed food, clothing, and shelter. Children and Single mothers could have been helped with the money. I'm tired of this Christianity movement that wastes money, time, and effort on boycotting or marketing when they need to be a rock, unwavering and unmoved. God gave them the trailer and the things contained within in the first place. Where is the faith that it would be replaced? My two cents.

Comments (6)

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