Today marks the summer solstice, and the drama of summer weather. Last night, my son and I were awed into silence by a spectacular show of lightening and thunder in the wide open spaces of our Colorado backyard. As we sat on the deck of our house basking in the warmth of the summer air and looking at the wide night sky, we were startled again and again by the sheet lightning that made the clouds flash and glow. Or maybe it was what is sometime called "heat lightening," far enough away that we weren't drenched by rain or even chilled by wind, but simply basked in the glow of the light show, warm and dry in the comfort of our own backyard.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Megachurches give new meaning to the phrase "Mission Statement"
Two white male CEOs walk into a bar. One heads a major pharmaceutical company. The other founded a megachurch. Each seeks diseased souls that need saving and the magic bullets to save them. The CEO of the pharmaceutical company consults with scientists and marketing analysts to identify a patient market and the new drug that will cure the targeted disease, as well as to devise a business strategy. The leader of the megachurch works with consultants and analysts who perform market research to target the "unchurched" and identify "seeker friendly" ways of spreading the word and expanding the megachurch's sphere of influence. Like the generic drug-maker repackaging the same medication with new labeling, the megachurch reformulates old-time religious moral guidance and leadership into an easy-to-swallow, melt-in-your-mouth Redi-tab.
As just one example, 70 miles south of Denver, CO, in a city higher than the mile-high city is Colorado Springs, where the citizens are closer to God and churches spring up like mushrooms. It is here that the evangelical preacher Ted Haggard (known to his parishoners at the New Life Church as "Preacher Ted") was at the center of a megascandal in late 2006. Now scandals are not new to megachurches -- but the surprise to this story is that the New Life Church (http://www.newlifechurch.org/) recovered from this megascandal, apparently in no small part with the help of a successful business plan.
Pastor Ted, who founded the New Life Church in 1984, admitted in November 2006 to "sexual immorality," having been outed by a male prostitute and personal trainer, Mike Jones, who wanted the world to know of Haggard's hypocrasy in view of his opposition to same-sex marriage. In early November 2006, Jones announced that Haggard and he had a three-year affair. At first, Haggard denied knowing Jones, but later admitted to the relationship, as well as to buying methamphetamine. However, because the New Life Church under Haggard's leadership had a disaster recovery plan in place, the church survives to this day, and apparently continues to find new life and new converts, as it currently has over 14,000 members, albeit under new leadership (see Wikipedia entry "New Life Church").
According to his seminar entitled "Pastoral Authority and Executive Leadership in the American Megachurch" presented May 20, 2008 by Omri Elisha, a resident scholar at the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, NM, the modern evangelical movement is run much like a corporation. On sabbatical from his postdoctoral position at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Fordham University, Elisha is a self-described "secular Jewish New Yorker" who spent 15 months embedded in a Tennessee megachurch, and is writing a book about his experience. Elisha attributed the large portion of the statistics presented in his seminar at SAR to the research of Scott Thumma, Ph.D. at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research (see http://www.hartfordinstitute.org/about/thumma.htm). The old-school mom-and-pop style church now competes with the megachurch, a compound serving as an easily accessible one-stop shop for its community, consisting largely of baby boomers. Picture Walmart. In fact, Thumma refers to "the religious marketplace" and point out that "(t)o both plan and structure their burgeoning matrix of ministries, church leaderships looked to one of the most prevalent institutional realities in the neighborhood, the shopping mall."
Thumma defines a megachurch as "a cluster of very large, Protestant congregations that share several distinctive characteristics. These churches generally have: 2000 or more persons in attendance at weekly worship, a charismatic, authoritative senior minister, a very active 7 day a week congregational community, a multitude of social and outreach ministries, and a complex differentiated organizational structure." In the U.S., there are currently over 1250 megachurches in existence today, a number that reflects an exponential growth over the last ten years, and the average megachurch has nearly 3600 attendees. According to Thumma, the majority of megachurches are under the guidance of "An Innovative Spiritual Entrepreneur." In his seminar at SAR, Elisha observed that the average megachurch is bureaucratic and staff-intensive, sometimes having dozens of assistant ministers, hundreds of full-time staff members, and up to 2000 volunteers. The budgets of the smallest of megachurches are at least two million dollars per year, requiring a corporation-style Executive Board to oversee business affairs and ensure doctrinal continuity. In an excerpt from his dissertation, Thumma notes "If there is a common message shared by all megachurches, it is that they want to portray what they do as more vital than other congregations, somehow better than "ordinary" Christianity." (See http://www.hartfordinstitute.org/bookshelf/thumma_article2.html).
Like Walmart, megachurches have greeters, ultramodern interiors with "praise choruses," rock bands and theatrical staging, presenting a multimedia spectacle on Jumbotrons for reaching a wide audience. Megachurches often pay for advertising on commercial television. Churchgoers are no longer limited to a simple diet of Sunday services and missionary programs. Attendees of megachurches are treated to charismatic megapreachers, guided by mission statements, marketing experts and publicity campaigns (just like any other corporation). Parishoners can partake of not only spiritual guidance, but social networks, recreational programs, daycare centers, parenting, aerobics, karate, and weight loss classes, divorce recovery groups and on-site financial advisors. Thumma concludes that the modern megachurch member is at home in large scale institutions, having grown up in them. Most were "probably born in a large hospital, educated in a consolidated high school and large public university, and entertained by rock concerts, cable television, and multiplex movie theaters. No doubt they shop in malls and food warehouses, and may commute thirty minutes or more to jobs in large corporations situated in office parks. These institutional realities and their practices have shaped both the character and the needs of these people. They find the megachurch to be 'home.' They are willing to drive past dozens of other congregations, fight to find a parking space, follow the signs to get to the nursery, and worship in a communal setting with five thousand other relatively anonymous persons, just like they do every day of their lives."
Finally, Thumma reports that megachurches often defy labels of strict liberalism or conservativism, instead exhibiting considerable pluralism. A variety of opinions and practices are tolerated in relation to women's roles, sexuality, abortion, and political persuasions. He notes that a tolerance of a diversity of possible alternatives, unified under the common vision, is an asset. With such tolerance of diversity, and a strong business and marketing strategy in place, perhaps it is really no surprise afterall that the New Life Church survived the Haggard megafiasco.
As just one example, 70 miles south of Denver, CO, in a city higher than the mile-high city is Colorado Springs, where the citizens are closer to God and churches spring up like mushrooms. It is here that the evangelical preacher Ted Haggard (known to his parishoners at the New Life Church as "Preacher Ted") was at the center of a megascandal in late 2006. Now scandals are not new to megachurches -- but the surprise to this story is that the New Life Church (http://www.newlifechurch.org/) recovered from this megascandal, apparently in no small part with the help of a successful business plan.
Pastor Ted, who founded the New Life Church in 1984, admitted in November 2006 to "sexual immorality," having been outed by a male prostitute and personal trainer, Mike Jones, who wanted the world to know of Haggard's hypocrasy in view of his opposition to same-sex marriage. In early November 2006, Jones announced that Haggard and he had a three-year affair. At first, Haggard denied knowing Jones, but later admitted to the relationship, as well as to buying methamphetamine. However, because the New Life Church under Haggard's leadership had a disaster recovery plan in place, the church survives to this day, and apparently continues to find new life and new converts, as it currently has over 14,000 members, albeit under new leadership (see Wikipedia entry "New Life Church").
According to his seminar entitled "Pastoral Authority and Executive Leadership in the American Megachurch" presented May 20, 2008 by Omri Elisha, a resident scholar at the School for Advanced Research (SAR) in Santa Fe, NM, the modern evangelical movement is run much like a corporation. On sabbatical from his postdoctoral position at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Fordham University, Elisha is a self-described "secular Jewish New Yorker" who spent 15 months embedded in a Tennessee megachurch, and is writing a book about his experience. Elisha attributed the large portion of the statistics presented in his seminar at SAR to the research of Scott Thumma, Ph.D. at the Hartford Institute for Religion Research (see http://www.hartfordinstitute.org/about/thumma.htm). The old-school mom-and-pop style church now competes with the megachurch, a compound serving as an easily accessible one-stop shop for its community, consisting largely of baby boomers. Picture Walmart. In fact, Thumma refers to "the religious marketplace" and point out that "(t)o both plan and structure their burgeoning matrix of ministries, church leaderships looked to one of the most prevalent institutional realities in the neighborhood, the shopping mall."
Thumma defines a megachurch as "a cluster of very large, Protestant congregations that share several distinctive characteristics. These churches generally have: 2000 or more persons in attendance at weekly worship, a charismatic, authoritative senior minister, a very active 7 day a week congregational community, a multitude of social and outreach ministries, and a complex differentiated organizational structure." In the U.S., there are currently over 1250 megachurches in existence today, a number that reflects an exponential growth over the last ten years, and the average megachurch has nearly 3600 attendees. According to Thumma, the majority of megachurches are under the guidance of "An Innovative Spiritual Entrepreneur." In his seminar at SAR, Elisha observed that the average megachurch is bureaucratic and staff-intensive, sometimes having dozens of assistant ministers, hundreds of full-time staff members, and up to 2000 volunteers. The budgets of the smallest of megachurches are at least two million dollars per year, requiring a corporation-style Executive Board to oversee business affairs and ensure doctrinal continuity. In an excerpt from his dissertation, Thumma notes "If there is a common message shared by all megachurches, it is that they want to portray what they do as more vital than other congregations, somehow better than "ordinary" Christianity." (See http://www.hartfordinstitute.org/bookshelf/thumma_article2.html).
Like Walmart, megachurches have greeters, ultramodern interiors with "praise choruses," rock bands and theatrical staging, presenting a multimedia spectacle on Jumbotrons for reaching a wide audience. Megachurches often pay for advertising on commercial television. Churchgoers are no longer limited to a simple diet of Sunday services and missionary programs. Attendees of megachurches are treated to charismatic megapreachers, guided by mission statements, marketing experts and publicity campaigns (just like any other corporation). Parishoners can partake of not only spiritual guidance, but social networks, recreational programs, daycare centers, parenting, aerobics, karate, and weight loss classes, divorce recovery groups and on-site financial advisors. Thumma concludes that the modern megachurch member is at home in large scale institutions, having grown up in them. Most were "probably born in a large hospital, educated in a consolidated high school and large public university, and entertained by rock concerts, cable television, and multiplex movie theaters. No doubt they shop in malls and food warehouses, and may commute thirty minutes or more to jobs in large corporations situated in office parks. These institutional realities and their practices have shaped both the character and the needs of these people. They find the megachurch to be 'home.' They are willing to drive past dozens of other congregations, fight to find a parking space, follow the signs to get to the nursery, and worship in a communal setting with five thousand other relatively anonymous persons, just like they do every day of their lives."
Finally, Thumma reports that megachurches often defy labels of strict liberalism or conservativism, instead exhibiting considerable pluralism. A variety of opinions and practices are tolerated in relation to women's roles, sexuality, abortion, and political persuasions. He notes that a tolerance of a diversity of possible alternatives, unified under the common vision, is an asset. With such tolerance of diversity, and a strong business and marketing strategy in place, perhaps it is really no surprise afterall that the New Life Church survived the Haggard megafiasco.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Just curious
Why does the hair on your head grow to an indeterminate length, but your eyelash hair doesn't?
What component of snot and boogers makes them sticky? Can it be purified or made synthetically, free of infectious agents, and sold as an organic adhesive? Has this already been done?
What component of snot and boogers makes them sticky? Can it be purified or made synthetically, free of infectious agents, and sold as an organic adhesive? Has this already been done?
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