Pastor Frowns On Wal-Mart's Apparent "Always No Proselytizing" Policy
by Fred Jackson and Jenni Parker
March 16, 2004
(AgapePress) - Wal-Mart has told a Baptist pastor in Conroe, Texas, that he must stop handing out church invitation tracts when he visits their store.Baptist Press (BP) reports that Steve Barrett, pastor of Northridge Baptist Church in Conroe, was shopping at his local Wal-Mart store recently, and in the midst of his browsing he struck up a conversation with one of the store managers that he knows personally. During this chat, Barrett noticed another manager watching the two of them, and so the pastor gave the man a tract and invited him to visit his church.
Barrett says he continued doing some more shopping, but when he proceeded to the check-out line, the second manager informed him that he must not invite people to church or hand out any more tracts at the store. According to the BP report, the manager claimed that to doing so would violate Wal-Mart's in-store solicitation policy.
The tracts the minister carries are cards printed with an invitation to his church, along with service times, and the church's name, address, phone number, and website information. Also printed on the cards are a couple of questions -- "Are you a good person? Have you broken any of God's laws?" -- followed by a listing of the Ten Commandments.
Incredulous, Barrett asked for clarification of the policy, and he says the store manager confirmed that he was indeed forbidden to invite people to church while on the store's premises. Shocked by this, the pastor wrote to Wal-Mart officials to complain. However, he says the store officials are backing the local manager.
A spokesperson from the Wal-Mart corporate communications office told the press that Barrett had received a response to his e-mailed complaint. She explained that in this case, the fact that the pastor handed out a tract was significant. That act violated the store's solicitation policy and all organizations, religious or otherwise, are equally prohibited from soliciting on Wal-Mart property. "It comes down to a fairness issue," the spokesperson says.
Barrett says inviting people to church is an important part of his life, and if Wal-Mart will not allow him to do that, he won't be shopping there anymore. He told BP that Wal-Mart officials were perfectly within their rights to enact such a policy, but said, "it's disappointing that an invitation to church can be considered offensive."
Northridge Baptist Church's pastor questions the apparent duplicity of national chain like Wal-Mart fostering a family-friendly image to get people into their stores and at the same time prohibiting Christians from practicing their beliefs there. He says when he invited the manager to church, he was not "standing at the door bombarding everybody," but was merely trying to make new friends.
