Quarter-Pounder Christianity

Mr. Donehue, whose political acumen Waldo admires beyond words when he's not selling it off to the hacks and mouthbreathers who make up the South Carolina Republican political class, disappoints again.

This time he's advising, "What your campaign can learn from church."

His model is Seacoast Church, a congregation you don't even have to attend:

Over the past three weeks I’ve been fortunate enough to be in Charleston, SC two of those weekends. On both Sundays I visited Seacoast Church. I watched the third Sunday via podcast.

Ranked as one of the five most innovative churches in America, Seacoast practices a multi-location system using the most up-to-the-minute new technologies. Much like a Burger King franchise, or more accurately, a Chic-fil-A franchise that opens on Sundays, people can open a Seacoast Church branch in their area. The role of each campus pastor is to:

(1) pastor the local congregation; (2) identify, recruit and develop key ministry leaders for Worship, Children, LIFE Groups, Students, First Touch and Missions; (3) lead the weekend services; (4) cooperate with the regional team, Champions and Central Support to shepherd the Seacoast DNA at the local campus as expressed in the ministry IPODS; (5) manage campus budget; and (6) lead staff and elders meetings.

Pastor Greg Surratt’s sermon is broadcasted to each location every Sunday. But that’s not all. These church branches aren’t just set up for a bunch of folks to gather around a television. And this is where campaigns can learn a lot. Each location sets up separate ministries to actually build relationships and connect with people.

They even take the next step and use social networks to connect members at different locations to one another. Members can “go to church online,” join small groups online and use web based after-the-sermon tools.

Most campaigns engage in one-way communication. They talk TO voters, but most fail to talk WITH voters. And a much smaller number take the next step and let supporters talk to each other to engage in what we can call “non-sanctioned” or even “viral” activities.

Campaigns need to do more than communicate. They need to connect. Visit seacoast.org to learn some new tricks for your campaign. An even better site is lifechurch.tv.

As a side note, Seacoast is the home church of Governor Mark Sanford. The three-week sermon I attended was called “The Picture Perfect Family.”

Waldo's not sure if the Mark Sanford reference is meant to be ironic, but never mind. Curious to see this wonder of wonders, Waldo checked out the Seacoast website. It's completely non-searchable. You can only read what they want you to know. It's all gauzy and vague about who's welcome, from which you can pretty well surmise who's not. Basically, it's a come get a weekend free at a timeshare come-on, you just have to listen to their spiel about buying in as the price.

Perfect for a theocrat party. Not so consistent with the Twitteratti interactivity and transparency Mr. Donehue preaches other days.