The Decisive and Divisive Issue of 07

2007 was an interesting year for the Apostolic Church. The United Pentecostal Church voted in their General Conference to allow Churches to advertise on television. This issue divided many brethren the last few years, and the decision to allow it was celebrated by many and condemned by probably just as many. A quick search on the internet will produce many blogs and message boards from proponents and opponents of this issue. I am not here to celebrate the decision nor speak against it. As with many issues we face today, both sides no doubt had good points in their argument. I want to state up front that I did not vote on the issue, I am a minister in a UPCI Church, but am licensed with another Fellowship. There are those that believe that TV advertising for a local Church will have tremendous results. Only time will truly tell, but they will probably be disappointed. God has never relied on anything man made to spread the gospel, and He wasn’t waiting on an organization to pass a resolution so He could fulfill His purpose on this earth. That being said, if one soul is won to the Lord because they decided to visit a Church they saw on TV, it would be hard to argue with that soul on Judgment Day that it was a bad idea. This is what I mean about there being two sides to the issue. For those that were so against the resolution because it will be detrimental to the Church, I doubt this will happen either. There may be Churches that have already put ads on TV, but I haven’t heard about them. There will probably be very few Churches who utilize TV ads. For a lot of markets it is just too expensive and there are more attractive advertising opportunities for Churches, such as newspapers and mail outs. In my opinion, the opponents are probably more afraid of where this resolution will lead the UPC than the actual resolution itself. The bottom line, TV ads will probably not have a great impact on the Church either way. I do hate to see so many brethren divided so sharply on an issue that in ten years will be mostly forgotten. There is coming a convergence of Television and Internet, so much of what is being discussed will be irrelevant, we just don’t how long that will be. We need to make sure issues like this do not distract the Ministry from our purpose to reach a lost and dying world, but that will be in another post. Now more than ever, let there be Unity among Jesus name, One God, Holiness preachers.

God Bless,