When Business and Religion Collide
The coexistence of business and religion has always been an interesting one, especially for the Christian businessperson. Many people have a hard time seeing a person striving to make money and do God's will at the same time, but that doesn't mean it cannot be accomplished. In fact, I've met several people who have been blessed with both a passion for God and great business sense.
However, there are also the cases when things go awry. I stumbled across one apparrent case of this a few weeks ago when I found ChurchShoppers.com. This is a site designed to help match people up with churches if they are switching churches or moving to a new area. The site appears well-intentioned for the most part, even including a belief statement, but it's then littered with advertisements. Ok, that I can deal with as it's become pretty commonplace on the web.
The real kicker to me was that if you want to have your church listed, you have to pay a $69.97 introductory fee for a basic listing, with another $149.97 each year thereafter to remain listed. And this is for a minimal listing. Their premier listing runs $99.97/200.97. All this for a service which doesn't do any more than allow churches to list contact info and leave some basic information about themselves.
Now, if they actually sent someone out to attend a service and provide some useful feedback for users, the listing may be worth the price. For now, this is simply gouging for a service that would be less effective than making sure your church website is listed in Google.
Honestly, the site may have been started with the best of intentions, but is has seemingly lost its way of promoting the kingdom of God in favor of the mighty dollar.
The lesson to learn from this is that when you partner up with a buisness (Christian or not), make sure you take the time to learn a little about those you are getting involved with. Otherwise, you may find out too late that the "Christian" business you've chosen may be working both for your cause and against it.
Hello!
I just wanted to clear up the misinformation presented on this post. We do have a fee listed for churches to build a detailed profile that gives an excellent representation of their church at a glance. This fee is $69.97 for a basic listing and 99.97 for a premium listing. This does not change, except for the fact that we are realizing that it is difficult to get churches to pay for marketing expenses. We have been offering free premium profiles for the last two months (did you miss that?) and will be dropping our cost : standard profile for free and a premium profile for $29.99 (includes audo, video and photos). As for the "littering," as it truly is our desire to help seekers find a church, it does take funding to get the word out; hence the ad space! As you know it also does take some funding to maintain the site. I'm thinking a business like your could help a lot of churches "get the Gospel story out!" with a great website! What do you say?
Stephani,
Thanks for responding. First, let me say that any "misinformation" in the post comes directly from what I saw on my visit to the ChurchShoppers website. The fees issue comes up because your pricing page lists the reduced fees as an "Introductory Price". With the annual price still listed there (though it is crossed out), it appears as though the price will increase after a year.
I did see the free premium listings offer, but it's not much of an incentive if I'm not going to pay $70 for a basic listing. A little free SEO work is likely to help people find my church and be more effective.
That said, if you are looking to offer free standard listings, then I would gladly change my opinion on your company and services. Like I said in the article, you have probably started with the best of intentions but got caught up in the business side of things.