Buyer Beware: When God Becomes the Sales Tactic

It seems it happens nearly every time I need work contracted on my house. At least one estimate, generally from a contractor I like, comes back with a fish symbol or a “God bless!” or a bunch of praying hand emoticons.

There’s nothing wrong with these… except this is a business, and the businesses I worked with in the past who used God as a sales tactic… generally were closer to being in league with the devil. Seriously, those businesses that tended to advertise as “Christian owned and operated” or otherwise indicated their faith as part of their business model lied, cheated, took advantage, and sometimes left me with more problems than I started with.

The worst was the HVAC man. He was a guy in my former church. A preacher, one of those in the ‘inner circle,’ one of those people whom the pastor bragged about and told others to respect. Good guy? Well, I was told he was. “Keep business in the church.” “Use him, he’ll give you a deal because you’re a sister.” I asked him to install a new AC unit for me. He ordered it, had me pay, and put it in my basement. He did NOT hook it up, though he’d promised to. A year later when I was trying to sell my house… it was STILL IN THE BASEMENT. The pastor finally did intervene, but it was a very stressful situation for me and even then, the man tried to shame me for wanting it installed. AFTER A YEAR. No one else would even touch the install, because they hadn’t ordered it… and apparently because it was nearly too old to meet the new rules for installing.

Another time, tree trimmers came. Good church members, always so helpful. They cut the tree down for me, but when I told them that yes, they could leave some of the trunk for a table and could leave some firewood for my fire pit, they left the ENTIRE trunk, in one piece, in the middle of the yard. I called and asked about it and they said I’d asked them to leave it, and what did I want them to do, now that it was there? It was too large to handle once it was laying on the ground, because it was huge. Well, a trunk 12+ feet long and over four feet in diameter at the base is too big for firewood OR a table, too!

There were other situations like this, from people within my former church… and unfortunately people from other churches too. Today it was a concrete contractor. The estimate came in with “God bless!” and immediately I had a gut feeling. I started digging in and researching more, and searching for some references that he did NOT solicit. Unfortunately, they were all one-star-never-again bad. And unfortunately it began to be apparent that most of the good reviews were associated with a single church and a single job, done for the cost of materials only, for one local church. It’s hard not to leave a good review for one job done at cost, with free labor. You’d almost think it was an advertising ploy.

Over time I’ve learned, leaving a card with “A Christian owned business” emblazoned as the byline, or a flyer or website with a fish symbol or cross on it, or email or text communications ending in “God bless,” or worse, with little Christianese emoticons (emoticons are not professional communication – double warning sign!) on them, is a reason to beware. Those have been the businesses in my experience that were least likely to treat people right. It’s almost like they expect those things to sell their business… and get those who solicit their business to back them even when they’re bad. They remind me of abusive pastors in that way.

Churches aren’t the only ones who spiritually abuse or take advantage of people ‘in Jesus’ name.’ Too bad God doesn’t sue people for slander, using his name in vain like that.

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Author: Through Grace

I was raised in a somewhat unhealthy church group within the Nondenominational Christian Church. After graduating high school, I began attending a United Pentecostal Church (UPC). I've been a member of four UPC churches and visited many others. Of the four of which I was a member, I was "encouraged" not to leave the first and then later sent to the second; attended the second where an usher repeatedly attempted to touch me and the pastor told me I should not care about the standards of the organization and was wrong to do so; ran to a third at that point, which threw me out after a couple years; and walked out of a fourth. For these transfers and because I refused to gossip about my former churches, some called me a "wandering star, a cloud without water" (Jude 1:12). I love the fact that when the blind man was healed, questioned by the Pharisees and temple rulers, and expelled from the temple, Jesus went and sought him out. He very rarely did this once someone was healed, but for this man, he did. I believe God has a special place in his heart for those who are abused, wrongfully accused, or condemned by religious leadership. I believe He loves those who are wronged by churchianity--yes, churchianity, not Christianity, because those who do these wrongs follow a church, not Christ. 1 John 4:7-8 7 Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. 8 He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love. 9 In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. 10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.

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