iDigress

Many Sydney residents will be familiar with last year’s “Jesus. All about life.” campaign run by a broad coalition of churches, involving dark blue banners on church properties, television ads, and an interactive website.     

The campaign ran earlier in Canberra, Adelaide and other places.  It was, of course, an easy target for lampoons, but there was a surprisingly positive response from inside and outside the church.  Now the campaign is to roll over into the Easter Show, as the following email advisory I received this morning from The Bible Society indicates:   

Christians are being called on to help raise awareness of Jesus at the Royal Easter Show held at Homebush [Sydney] from April 1-14, 2010. To follow on from the 2009 “Jesus. All about life” campaign, [the] Bible Society has organised a stall at Australia’s leading agricultural show.  All volunteers will be given a training session in evangelism, as well as free access to the show and all its attractions … As an added drawcard, it’s hoped several high profile Christian sportspeople will make appearances at the stall.   

Bible Society CEO Daniel Willis said “Research following the campaign told us the community were surprised by the cooperation of the JAAL banner hanging on over 1,000 Churches across NSW. Christians were excited to see a common purpose in joining to worship the one Lord Jesus. Easter provides us with the opportunity to lift the name of Jesus and unite in spreading his message; we would like to ask all Churches if you would consider joining us putting up the Jesus. All about life banners from April 1st – 14th.”   

As part of the Easter show Christian volunteers are being called-on to man the stall throughout the duration. Volunteers will be required to chat with people who visit the stall and help to hand out thousands of Mark’s Gospel, the story of Easter pamphlets and Jesus stickers, we pray that through this non-Christians will find meaningful engagement with Jesus.   

I must be careful saying anything in response to this news, since I was savagely attacked (albeit with words, not stones) when I expressed a luke-warm view about the original campaign on my Facebook wall.   

Suffice it to say that the Royal Easter Show is one place I would definitely expect Jesus to head to if he were here in Sydney at Easter, but I’m not at all sure that he would want to be seen with a bunch of zealous God-botherers handing out “Jesus stickers” — even if he were offered a training session in evangelism, free access to all attractions, and a photo op with “several high profile Christian sportspeople.”   

Then again, I could be wrong, in which case the righteous among you will no doubt correct me.   

One of the images from the 2009 JAAL ad campaign