We’re uncomfortable with advertising for churches. Perhaps they are too blunt for our tastes — open disclosure that churches are the businesses they, in fact, are. That the churches most likely to engage in the practice are the kind who brag about saved souls like Wilt Chamberlain talking about the notches on his bed post makes us no less uncomfortable with the practice. Call us naive and daintily uncynical, but we like to think of churches as places where people with common beliefs can go for support, love and communion, without being suckered or manipulated into it.

That said, we saw this radio ad posted on Church Marketing Sucks, and we just had to post it. Using the distinctive format of an advertisement for a Monster Truck Rally, the spot advertises St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Alabama. Here’s a partial transcript:

This SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! It’s a SACRAMENTAL SHOWDOWN at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in South Side! See the St. Andrews Acolyte Drill Team Amaze The Crowd With Feats of LITURGICAL ACROBATICS! Feel the OVERWHELMING TSUNAMI OF LOVE during the Singing of the Peace! And witness GIANT SIN-CRUSHING LOAVES OF BREAD and MONSTER VATS OF WINE wash away your sins during the Eucharist

Really quite clever. Apparently, it isn’t an officially-sanctioned ad, instead put together by one of the church-goers on a lark, but is generating such great Episcopalian buzz that the church is debating whether or not to actually put it on the radio. Head over to Church Marketing Sucks to listen to the whole thing.

Monster Truck Church Ad [Church Marketing Sucks]

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