Jesus went into the temple of God and drove out all those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. And He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a ‘den of thieves.’” (Matthew 21:12,13) Though we don’t read of Jesus being violent or hurting anyone, his actions were forceful against the merchandisers who set up shop in the place of worship.
Similar to the merchandisers of Jewish Temple of Jesus’ day are the megachurch pastors of our day who use the pulpit to promote their books. For instance, megachurch pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church has built himself a $1.7 million mansion of the sales of his books. Staurt Watson of NBC Charlotte explains how Furtick is using his non-profit megachurch to make a profit. He reports,
Pastor Steven Furtick is promoting “Crash the Chatterbox,” in bookstores next week.
Publisher Waterbook Multnomah, a division of Random House, is pre-selling the book with a buy-one-get-one-free offer through Feb. 14.
The timing of the offer gives the book a shot at getting on a New York Times’ Best Sellers List. (source)
Watch the news segment below or read the full report here:
James Duncan of the Pajama Pages blog writes:
Steven Furtick’s promotional efforts for his forthcoming Crash the Chatterboxbook reveal one of his tricks for generating the important first-week sales to get the book on the New York Times bestseller list.
The details are described in a special-offer pageon the book’s promotional website. If you purchase his book from an online retailer before it’s officially released, his publisher will send you a free copy a month or two later. If you purchase 100 from the retailer, they’ll send you another hundred for free. To take advantage of the offer, you must place your order by February 10, the day before the book’s official release.
On the book’s promotional site, the special offer is only mentioned on the page offering $49 study packs. If you go to the regular order page, the BOGO offer isn’t mentioned. Why not? Because customers for the packs are most likely to be churches, and some churches can be counted on to buy bucket loads of books, not just one or two at a time.
Fair enough, I suppose, to try to get as many books into the hands of church leaders as possible at half price. Steven Furtick wants to spread his spiritual insights to as many believers as he can, surely. What’s interesting is why you have to get the order in two allotments, one in mid-February from a brand-name store, and one in March or April from the publisher. Why not just offer 200 books for half price and ship them all from the publisher at once. If you want 200 books for a group to study, you can’t start until the second shipment arrives, so why bother with the two-step dance?
Because Mr. Furtick needs your big order for the New York Times.
As described in another post, the trick is to sell enough books in the first week to get onto one of the Times‘ bestseller lists, after which the book can fall off it, but you can market yourself and your book forever after as NYT bestsellers, as Perry Noble does, and as the cover of the Chatterbox book unabashedly does. (source)
Jesus found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.” (John 2:14-17)