“Break Away” Church:
Managing Mainstream and Religion Media Storm

Challenge
The attorney for St. James Church in Newport Beach, Calif., Payne & Fears, approached Gladstone International in late July 2004 for assistance with an announcement to be made in just three weeks that would shake the Episcopal Church USA (ECUSA) to its foundations. The clergy and secular leaders of St. James and St. David's, a sister church in Long Beach, had decided their churches would no longer be affiliated with ECUSA or the Diocese of Los Angeles. Instead, they would become part of the Anglican Church of the Province of Uganda in the Diocese of Luweero.

At that time, St. James was the largest and most significant church to prepare to break away from ECUSA. Since St. James occupied property on Balboa Island, an exclusive area of Newport Beach, the value of the real estate alone guaranteed the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles would come after it, even though the title belonged to the church membership, which had paid for all improvements since the 1920s.

Solution
Within the very tight, three week timeframe, we developed a comprehensive public relations plan to prepare for intensive media scrutiny and reassure church members. We started by doing extensive research to understand the religion media, notably powerful blogs edited by religion experts. We identified a major challenge to help St. James and St. David’s pastors avoid being tainted as anti-gay, a label that affected churches that previously disaffiliated from ECUSA.

We prepared key messages to reinforce the churches’ biblically orthodox beliefs and provided in-depth media training for the pastors and lay spokespeople. We anticipated media outreach by the aggressive Bishop of the Diocese of Los Angeles and issued position statements immediately following any and all interviews and statements by the Bishop. Our initial set of messages and proactive media campaign profoundly influenced the content of all subsequent print and broadcast stories.