Special Announcement!

Grandview Christian Church announced yesterday that it is entering into an innovative partnership with the Walmart Corporation. The move is being hailed as religion and retail’s natural next step. Senior minister, Aaron Wymer, said in a recent press conference that in order to reduce debt load and gain visibility in the marketplace, Grandview sold a share of their naming rights to the retail giant. “We’re also exploring effective new methods of cross promotion—pun intended!” Wymer said.

While the details of the agreement have not yet been announced, the two have agreed, in principle, to push the envelope of church membership and merchandising. The Sunday morning greeters at Grandview will soon be recruited from the Seniors’ ministry, supplied with blue vests, and carefully trained to detect visitors who might be leaving the church building with property that belongs to the church.

Parishioners who tithe will receive a 10% discount card that will be good on merchandise under $50 at all area Walmarts. The discount card, to be named the “Resurrection Rewards Card,” will serve the dual purposes of allowing the church to track the purchasing power of their members while allowing Walmart greater insight into effective ways to market to modern Christians.

Negotiations between the two have been ongoing and appeared to hit a snag early in the process when Grandview leaders flirted with Kmart and their “saving’s place” positioning in the market. While the tie-in seemed natural for a church, in the end Walmart’s size, power, and ability to brand both products and consumers made them the more valuable partner. Sources say that Grandview originally approached more upscale retailers such as Proffit’s and Saks, who liked the idea, but rebuffed Grandview in favor of a larger church with a higher average SPP (salary per parishioner).

Critics of the partnership worry about the effect that the world’s largest merchandiser will have on this small to mid-size church. Wymer defended the deal, saying, “History shows that the gospel will find a way. These are the same detractors who believed that Constantine, science—even the Enlightenment project—would be the death of the divinely ordained good news. But I ask you, did the gospel survive? Yes. The gospel will survive consumerism, modernism, postmodernism, and 10% off yogurt and reasonably priced leather shoes.”

One church leader, speaking under conditions of anonymity, said, “We had a closed door meeting in which we fully intended to relieve Aaron of his position for this breach of trust, but when we all compared our grocery bills and saw the savings, we decided to take a wait-and-see approach.”