The church is aiming to dissociate itself from what it perceives as the negative and unpopular image of organised religion connected with these religious groups.
‘Organised religion is seen as irrelevant, deceptive and in decline because of recent controversies surrounding Anglican and Catholic institutions,’ said Chris Genasi, founder of Eloqui Public Relations, which has been appointed by the church to lead its PR campaign. ‘We want to show people that the Pentecostal Church is different.’
The group claims services at Kensington Temple are so popular that seven consecutive sermons from dawn to dusk on Sunday still do not meet demand, and the local community has started to complain about the noise
worshippers make while queuing up for the sermons.
Eloqui, which won the brief after a three-way pitch, aims to improve relations with local residents and promote the group as ‘the people’s church’ and an alternative to traditional organised religions. The campaign will include developing crisis management procedures as well as media relations.
Kensington Temple decided to launch the campaign after its membership expanded by a third over a three-year period. It hopes that PR initiatives will help to increase its membership from 12,000 to 100,000 by 2008.
