Church publicity

[bytebear]

So, this Christmas we visited relatives in Minnesota. One day we visited the Mall of America. At the entrance there was a big board filled with fliers advertising the various churches in the area. They had every church you could imagine... except LDS. So what gives? Is it up to the local leaders to coordinate such things? Is it the mission president? Or the local missionaries? I just hate to see such an opportunity lost.

Closer to home, if you go to Catalina Island just off the coast of Southern California, they have a sign listing all the churches on the island, and I am happy to say that just a few years ago, a branch was formed on the island, and the LDS church is listed among the various denominations. Yay!

[Palerider]

All kinds of things play into that. It may be the local members or Mission have not done anything to get that on there. They could have attempted and someone said no or it gets removed.

[BenRaines]

Or it could be as I have seen in many small towns through the country is the sign at the entrance to the city is sponsored by the local Christian association, to which we, LDS, are not allowed to join.

Ben Raines

[Palerider]

Or it could be as I have seen in many small towns through the country is the sign at the entrance to the city is sponsored by the local Christian association, to which we, LDS, are not allowed to join.

Ben Raines

I guess thats what I was trying to say, you just said it better....:)

[Wingnut]

It's most likely that outreach was not made to the LDS in the area, and they were not made aware of the display. A lot of Christian faiths don't see us as Christian, so why would they include us in a collective Christian directory?

[NeuroTypical]

When groups of churches get together to do things like run advertising campaigns, we're usually not involved. Some of that is probably due to the churches worried about us not being Christian enough, but I'm thinking most of it is because wards and stakes don't have (or need) advertising budgets. We have missionaries, you tube channels, and maybe church HQ runs ads in various places at various times.

[RipplecutBuddha]

It's ironic though that such things occur.

For instance during my mission in San Diego, I flipped through the white pages and just out of curiostiy I looked up the LDS listing.

*It took up almost an entire page in the phone book*

the next longest listing I could find for any church was the catholic church, and it wasn't that close either.

On one hand it would be nice to be included in such advertisings, so it could be known that we really are part of the community. On the other hand, the world does have a habit of rejecting us at any turn possible, so I don't really worry about it.

The way I see it, if the Christian community chooses not to include us in their 'clique', it's their loss. Think of all the advantages they're giving up by passing on our capacity for outreach and advertising in our own right. As far as I'm concerned they're shooting themselves in the collective foot just for spite.

maybe one day they'll change their position, but until then, we'll get along fine as it is.

[bytebear]

In this particular case, I don't think it was exclusion by the people who set up the display, since this board had probably 50 or more denominations, and many were non-Christian faiths. They had Jehovah's Witnesses and Bahai as well as Jewish and Muslim listings.