SC Church Billboard Displays 'Message From Satan'
A South Carolina church has launched an ad campaign featuring billboards which have a message signed by Satan.
Redemption World Outreach Center, a large church in Greenville, posted two black billboards with the message "Please do not go to Redemption World Outreach Center this Sunday" with the name "Satan" written at the bottom.
Josh McCarnan, communications manager for Hampton Park Baptist Church Ministries, told The Christian Post that he felt the billboard was not the best way to reach out.
"I am a communications manager, so I deal a lot with graphics," said McCarnan, who felt the billboard "from a graphics standpoint" was poor.
"I understand kind of the motives behind it. But from a graphics standpoint … it doesn't really say a whole lot about the church."
In an interview with local media, RWOC Pastor Ron Carpenter explained that the billboards were not meant to be offensive and were supposed to be a way to reach out to youth.
"I want to go back and reach the young adult generation which has been labeled very extreme, so I said, 'I need to send an extreme message to try to jump start the curiosity of a younger generation,'" said Carpenter to WYFF Channel 4 News.
"They like to talk about maybe good and evil but don't want to bring devils and Satan's name into it. But we believe he exists, and we believe this is a place he wouldn't really want you to be."
McCarnan, however, questioned how effective this billboard would really be in getting youth to attend the Outreach Center.
"Young people aren't idiots," said McCarnan. "I don't want to say that it will never work but … in terms of church marketing, this isn't one of the best moves I've seen."
McCarnan told CP that he believed a better way for youth outreach was to volunteer with local charities and to be directly involved in the community.
Redemption World Outreach Center of Greenville did not return a request for comment by press time.
The Greenville church intends to display the two billboards with the message at varying places in the city for the next four months.
