Social Media Campaign to address Calvary Chapel Church abuses.
Thank you to all of you who have shown/given support to our efforts to bring reforms to the Calvary Chapel System of Churches and/or to warn the public about the often-untold other side of the Calvary Chapel Story.
In that ongoing effort, here is a particular tactic we can do together:
Calvary Chapels are located in cities all over the United States. Each city has a set of online social media feedback/review outlets like Topix, Google reviews, Yelp, and even facebook pages about the local area.
We’re going to leverage those to get the word out. Here’s how:
1. Create a Topix post and write a brief paragraph about Calvary Chapel abuses in general, warning the public that there have been well-documented problems/abuses/corruption in the Calvary Chapel System and to make sure to do your research before committing and trusting a particular Calvary Chapel franchise. Not all Calvary Chapels are the same, despite the claims they make of “Affiliation” and “Association”. Then simply copy and paste a link to the CalvaryChapelAbuse.com website. Use the link to the main page, as individual page links are too long and don’t work on Topix. Copy and paste this into your post:
http://www.calvarychapelabuse.com
2. Write Google reviews for the particular Calvary Chapel franchises, but simply discuss what your experience has been in the Calvary Chapel System and what your concerns are with Calvary Chapel as a whole and point them to articles on this site or to the main page and ask them to do their research and due diligence before committing to a Calvary Chapel franchise, because not all Calvary Chapels are safe places and the dangers in Calvary Chapel that are well-documented in the public record are often hidden from Calvary Chapel non-member members and prospective non-members.
3. Write Yelp reviews similar to the Google reviews and point folks to the Calvary Chapel Abuse website for more information and warn them that not all Calvary Chapels are the same and there have been many issues of abuse and corruption in the Calvary Chapel System and that there are not mandatory protections in place in the Affiliation/Association Agreements that each CC Franchisee has with Calvary Chapel. Ask them to do their due diligence and know the whole Calvary Chapel story, not just the CC Sales Pitch.
4. Link Calvary Chapel Abuse articles on your facebook page and share the articles with friends. Link CC Abuse articles on other facebook pages you “like” and get the word out in your area or anywhere you can.
All of this does important things: It creates broader awareness to the problems in Calvary Chapel and warns people (which arms them with both sides of the CC Story, not just the PR sales pitch), it raises awareness and puts pressure on the Calvary Chapel System to clean up its act and is in itself a form of much needed accountability, and it drives traffic to this website/blog and moves up the ranks in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and causes us to climb the list of “Most popular blogs” by the analytics used to rank blogs. Currently, CC Abuse is now ranked in the Top 100 most popular Christian blogs in the US by the site metrics used to rank such (using Alexa rankings). We are rapidly climbing. We have over 6 MILLION hits in over 3 years and the traffic is picking up.
Let’s keep making noise. Let’s keep pushing. It’s how things get done in our current System. We have power. Let’s use it.
Here’s an example of a Topix discussion thread with link to the Calvary Chapel Abuse website: