Spitzer Space Telescope Captures Galactic Snack
This image of the Andromeda galaxy uses data from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope. NASA
“Sincerity makes the very least person to be of more value than the most talented hypocrite.” Charles Spurgeon
A huge story may happen soon. Amy Smith and I will be sure to let those who follow us know as soon as it happens. Sometimes, things work as they should.
What is the history of the megachurch?
I spent much of my life in megachurches. My understanding is a church becomes a “mega” when according to Wikipedia:
The Hartford Institute for Religion Research defines a megachurch as any Protestant Christian church that draws 2,000 or more people in a weekend.
I learned that Charles Spurgeon established the first so-called megachurch in the 19th century. The first US megachurch was in Los Angeles in 1923.
The origins of the megachurch movement, with many local congregants who returned on a weekly basis, can be traced to the 19th century.[1][2] There were large churches earlier, but they were considerably rarer.
The first evangelical megachurch was founded in 1861 in London by Charles Spurgeon at the Metropolitan Tabernacle, which had a 6,000-seat auditorium.[3]
The first megachurch in the United States was the Angelus Temple, founded in 1923 by Aimee Semple McPherson in a 5,300-seat auditorium in Los Angeles.[4]
Some facts about megachurches.
I moved from a “large” church of 600 in North Carolina to Texas and landed by virtue of proximity in Ed Young’s Fellowship Church, which was rapidly expanding from 2000 on its way to at least 24,000. I was stunned and mesmerized by the mistaken assumption that I had landed in the mecca of Christianity. We moved to Bent Tree Church when it had 400 members and watched it grow to 6,000, a small megachurch by Dallas/Fort Worth standards.
A 2020 study by the Hartford Institute found that 70 percent of American megachurches had a multi-site network and an average of 7.6 services per weekend.[14] The study also found that most U.S. megachurches are in Florida, Texas, California, and Georgia.[15]
What is a gigachurch?
Then, there is the gigachurch, which has 10,000+ members. In Raleigh, I know JD Greear’s church meets this number.
Churches that gather more than 10,000 people every Sunday have been dubbed gigachurches.[16][17] In 2015, there were about 100 gigachurches in the United States. [18]
The megachurch that caused me to question the paradigm.
I was a member of a 2,000-member church that was attempting to hit 3,000. Architectural plans were drawn for the bright, shiny, huge building, which never got built. The many young teen boys molested by a monster disguised as a SEBTS student caused me to question the constant focus on numbers. We challenged the church’s response to their obvious failure to supervise this “volunteer.” I had other questions and observations as well.
- How do they supervise, or do they not supervise?
- There are too many people, too many kids, and too many programs. Is “too many” the correct formula?
- Pastors who put on the game face for the pulpit are very different in real life.
- They refused to clean the member roles, so the numbers are bigger.
- It seems the higher the numbers, the closer they are to God.
- Why do all the auditoriums all look so butt ugly and depressing?
- When pastors are confronted with issues, they become angry and say, “You are destroying God’s church.”
- Why do pastors think that admitting to failure hurts the church’s “witness?” Doesn’t everyone fail?
- Are the leaders hiding behind a false facade of piety?
Well, you get the jist. So, after some years in the wilderness, we decided to find a non-megachurch and found one and enjoyed it. I love that they pray for people in need by name in each service. I like it so much that I will never return to a megachurch. That makes me a hypocrite and selfish.
Ed Young Jr. and Andy Stanley would think I’m a hypocrite and selfish because I don’t like megachurches.
The Christian Post posted Pastor Ed Young calls people who say megachurches are ‘too big’ hypocrites.
Ed Young Jr: It’s not fair!!!!
In a statement on Facebook Friday, Young, whose church had a reported weekly attendance of more than 24,000 in 2020, noted that people have frequently told him that his church “is just too big” and suggested that it’s not fair to complain about the size of a church if it’s in a place where there’s a lot of people.
You can listen to him as he “proves” he is right and you are wrong. Can you imagine coming to this guy with a suggestion? Wait, I did many years ago. I asked why we couldn’t answer questions in adult Sunday school.” The answer was “No.” If you allow questions, you don’t know what questions you will get.” I suggested the Holy Spirit might be of assistance. “Have a nice day.”
The church is like a football stadium and a mall.
I had to smile about this. Has he seen how massive malls are declining since most people shop online? Using this analogy, he should be worried about attendance in his megachurch. (Actually, it think this is the raison d’être.) Also, when does a person put a football stadium in the same category as the church? One is not going to a football stadium to build an intimate relationship with God. However, I do remember that attending Fellowship Church was not unlike going to a Dallas Cowboys game, complete with the “rah rah.”
that’s got to be one of the most hypocritical statements someone can make because the person making the statement goes to massive concerts. They would go to a game, a football game. They would go to a massive mall, and they never really say that about those entities,”
Heaven is going to be just like a gigachurch.
Say it isn’t so!
if you think the church is too big, then you’re not going to like Heaven, because Heaven is going to be a big place. If a church is around a lot of people, it should be big in the context of being big,”
Andy Stanley said you are stinking selfish if you go to a church of 200.
Christian Post wrote:(This was in a video that Stanley has removed)
“When I hear adults say, ‘Well, I don’t like a big church. I like about 200, I want to be able to know everybody,’ I say, ‘You are so stinking selfish,'” argued Stanley. “You care nothing about the next generation. All you care about is you and your five friends. You don’t care about your kids, anybody else’s kids.”
Then he apologized, but I think we now know how Young and Stanley feel.
These men appear to believe they have found a God-given way to do church. It is the only way to raise your kids. I raised my kids in these environments, and saying I am not impressed is an understatement. Young, Stanley, Osteen, and many others have presided over the coming of the megachurch. I know these men rely on the Venmos sitting in their church stadiums. Yet, with the rise of gigachurches, people are fleeing the church. I wonder if people are tired of churches that look and sound like football stadiums. I wonder if the kid’s play areas with rock climbing walls have produced kids who think the church is like a rock climbing wall.
I still remember my first visit to my Lutheran church. It was a cold January Saturday evening. I walked into a pretty building with a lovely sanctuary. The candles were lit, and the contemporary stained glass windows were beautiful. For the first time in decades, I sat down and relaxed. Ed Young wasn’t rolling out onto the stage in a tank (Yep, it happened.) I enjoyed the liturgy, which was adapted to be a less traditional service. I suspected I would never willingly return to the football stadiums masquerading as churches.
We are quite happy being hypocrites and stinking selfish in our lovely church. I am glad for those who have found Jesus in a gigachurch setting. However, it appears these men think their paradigm is the correct way to do church. Poor Jesus! He forgot to create an instant megachurch. It must have been challenging to worship with some disciples and a few hangers-on. How selfish and short-sighted of the Lord. After all, isn’t heaven like a mega mall?
Am I a hypocrite and selfish if I don’t like either Ed Young Jr. or Andy Stanley?
Max(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
They need to say this because their messages are no more spiritually insightful than what you get from the average stadium PA announcer. And I probably just insulted all commenters that are PA announcers.
These guys are lightweights.
George(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
On the whole, those who participate in mega-mania are swimming in shallow water … just not much spiritual depth in the message and method delivered by the mega-boys. I suppose that is a primary reason so many folks are drawn to such ministries … no spiritual challenge which would call them to a pursuit of Christlikeness. Mega is entertaining and comfortable … you can hide a lifetime in such churches and never mature spiritually.
Max(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Well, according to the Hartford Institute, wasn’t the first mega church in Acts 2?
No wait… they didn’t meet together every week… most of them traveled back home and spread the Gospel in their respective towns.
Hmm…
Tom Rubino(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Well of course megachurch pastors advocate for the existence of megachurches. How else are they going to make their money?
Observant Outsider(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Tom Rubino,
No rock climbing walls for kids, w\either.
dee(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Observant Outsider,
Bingo
Jeffrey Chalmers(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
how many smaller churches closed so the mega million$ could grow?
Why are people drawn to mega churches in the first place; without blaming the big churches?
Why does the church seek great orators?
What do itching ears really long to hear?
Please, rhetorical questions pondering, but if there is a referenced study or data, please share.
Mii(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
I know I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again.
All tax free to boot!
It just ain’t fair that little Bill gets his a$$ taxed off, and big Bob, honcho of a mega-biggie doesn’t pay diddly.
Muff Potter(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Come and listen to a story ’bout a preacher named Jed.
Poor rural parson barely kept his family fed.
Then one day he went to Pastor’s School,
And when he returned, he was a Fundy tool.
(Gimmicks, that is. Proof texts. Lotsa rules.)
Well the next thing you know, the Mega Church looks great,
Buses everywhere throughout the Tri-State,
New Basement Bible College and Academy,
With just one man to rule so there is no anarchy.
(Dictatorship that is. Pastoral Authority. IFB heroes.)
Well, now its time to say goodbye to Jed and all his ilk.
Now that he is doing time his wife’s no more in silk.
You’re all invited to stop in on Thursday about noon
To commiserate with the former Fundy church tycoon.
(The Elm Street Embezzler. That’s what they call him now.
Property auction in two weeks. Ya’ll come bid now, ya hear!)
Adrian Romano(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
“They refused to clean the member rolls, so the numbers are bigger.”
Catholic parishes pay their vig to the Diocese based on membership numbers, so there is an obvious motivation to take people off the roll if they’re not actually attendees.
Cynthia W.(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Sounds like a Southern Baptist church. There are dead people still on the rolls in many SBC churches! … others have moved from the area, go to other churches, or simply missing in action. Of the reported 16 million SBC members, the ‘real’ number is more like 8 million and only 4 million of those bother to show up on Sunday.
Max(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Adrian Romano,
Hilarious satire!
Muff Potter(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Max,
If there’s no downside to keeping ex-members on the roster, then it’s predictable that they would stay on. Even with an obvious financial motive, we have trouble persuading the secretary or the business manager to get it done, just because they don’t want to be bothered.
Cynthia W.(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
“that’s got to be one of the most hypocritical statements someone can make because the person making the statement goes to massive concerts. They would go to a game, a football game. They would go to a massive mall”
Category error. It’s like saying that a person who had his ancient, sick dog put to sleep is a hypocrite if he doesn’t support animal sacrifice.
It’s discouraging that these men, who are at the pinnacle of success in their industry, apparently believe that they are making persuasive arguments for their point of view. What does that suggest about their ability to understand the Bible? (Answer: that their views are probably shallow and poorly reasoned.)
Cynthia W.(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
The reading for today has a few to say about rich egos with shallow souls:
1 COR 4:6b-15
Brothers and sisters: Learn from myself and Apollos not to go beyond what is written, so that none of you will be inflated with pride in favor of one person over against another.
“Who confers distinction upon you? What do you possess that you have not received? But if you have received it, why are you boasting as if you did not receive it? You are already satisfied; you have already grown rich; you have become kings without us!
“Indeed, I wish that you had become kings, so that we also might become kings with you.
“For as I see it, God has exhibited us Apostles as the last of all, like people sentenced to death, since we have become a spectacle to the world, to angels and men alike. We are fools on Christ’s account, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are held in honor, but we in disrepute.
“To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are poorly clad and roughly treated, we wander about homeless and we toil, working with our own hands. When ridiculed, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we respond gently. We have become like the world’s rubbish, the scum of all, to this very moment.
“I am writing you this not to shame you, but to admonish you as my beloved children. Even if you should have countless guides to Christ, yet you do not have many fathers, for I became your father in Christ Jesus through the Gospel.”
Psalm 127 Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders build in vain.” Mega or minnie, or medium sized, without God, it’s all in vain.
Every “Christian” entity where children and women are violated is godless, in vain, no matter the size of the enterprise.
Ava Aaronson(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Adrian Romano,
I liked this so much, I tweeted it!
dee(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
These things I remember: I remember when local SBC churches in our area usually had in their bylaws and constitution a trigger number. In town it might be 75 or even 200. Smaller places usually set it at 50 to 100. When membership reached that trigger number the church would have a split meeting. No anger, no rancor. Just a mission minded bunch of people deciding how much money they could give the “sent church” to secure a building or meeting place if needed, and how much ongoing support they could give for 6 months or even a year to pay a supply preacher. Those last two words were key. Supply preacher. Not a career preacher. Someone called to preach, not ceo a church. Usually the start up churches were healthy functioning churches rapidly and self supporting. And doing that, it our area, I would guess well over 75% of the adult population was a member of an SBC church and professed believer in Christ.
But this I also remember: I remember when that had changed from preachers to pastors in the SBC, and one of our pastors went to a meeting of the high ups to PLAN AND PLOT how to raise the educational standards of preachers, thereby weeding most out of the business, FOR THE PURPOSE OF RAISING THE PAY OF THE REMAINING ONES. And ever since then, the SBC has been in decline.
People will scrimp, sacrifice, work their fingers to the bone, and generally give their lives to see other people get saved. But once you figure out church has become just another pyramid marketing scheme aimed at bringing in tithing units rather than seeing souls saved, smart folks are out of there.
linda(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
It seems to have been even more extreme than that; the group scattered away from Jerusalem under persecution and only the apostles were left.
If one takes a strong view of Divine Sovereignty, one could argue that God did not want that very large gathered group to stay gathered.
—-
I think that another argument against mega-church-dom is that it is not healthy for the leaders to have so much influence over so many people. It can feed narcissism. I think that it can twist one’s private practical theology, too, to believe that one is so important to God, or that “God gave me authority over this huge crowd.” That kind of self-conception is likely to place one at odds with the Spirit when it comes to things like “patience”, “gentleness” and “self-control.”
Another objection is that the management of very large groups inevitably requires resort to hierarchical forms of control, which is the way “the world” organizes large groups. This seems contrary to Jesus’ teachings about “servant leadership.”
Samuel Conner(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
The only thing I respect about Heath Lambert at First Baptist Jacksonville is that after his requirement for members to sign the statement on sexual morality is that the church membership was reduced from 30,000 to 2,100. I don’t know if 2,100 go to FBC Jax every weekend, but it is now only barely a megachurch if at all.
All the still existing Southern Baptist churches I have been affiliated with – First Baptist Daytona Beach and Colonial Heights Baptist in Ridgeland, MS – now have much smaller attendance than they did 20 years ago.
Troy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Troy,
SBC is done; it just hasn’t quit yet. The New Calvinists finished it off.
Max(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
I wonder how many mega church members are really “new Christians”. In our area most mega members (if they weren’t raised in it) are refugees from other denominations that are now failing. Anecdotally most raised in it leave in their teens.
It appears that Christians are coalescing with like minded pals but overall the religion is decreasing.
Every time the bucket of water transfers there’s spillage but no new water is being added.
Jack(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Ava Aaronson,
Very good points.
Cynthia W.(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Well worth repeating:
“Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders build in vain. Mega or minnie, or medium sized, without God, it’s all in vain.”
“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher. Vanity of vanities! All that is done without God’s guidance is vanity, futile, meaningless, a wisp of smoke, a vapor that vanishes, merely chasing the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 1:2 AMP)
Max(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Or newspaper horoscopes.
Or “Top Psychics’ Predictions” in (pre-Social Media) National Enquirer or Weekly World News.
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
If not a drying-out mudflat.
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
This is highly dependent on your region. Yes, overall religiosity (that is a real word) is decreasing in the US by all measures.
1. Self-identification – When a person is asked what religion they are?
2. Membership – Does the person belong to a house of worship?
3. Attendance – Does the person attend religious services, and how frequently?
4. Importance – How important do they consider religion to be in their lives?
Some of the best public resources for this information is:
PRRI – https://www.prri.org/research-by-date/
Pew Research – https://www.pewresearch.org/topic/religion/
Gallup – https://news.gallup.com/topic/religion.aspx
And yes, for several decades, there has been a trend of young people leaving the church in their early adulthood, i.e., their first time living independently. Historically, as they reached the milestones of entering the workforce, marriage, childbirth, or a child going to school (Sunday school), they started to participate in their childhood religion again.
Currently, churches are dealing with two trends:
1. Lower retention— Currently, the retention rate for people raised in a religion is around 60%. As people hit the milestones listed above, they tend to return to their church less often.
2. More people are raised in non-religious homes. The conversion rate (for people raised without religion to a religion) is around 20%.
The target demographic for megachurches is re-engaging young adults by being less ‘boring’ than the church in which they were raised.
I expect that in the coming decades, these trends will continue. As a result, there will be:
1. A decreasing yet highly vocal religious right who have consolidated into mega-churches.
2. Increasing population of nones.
3. An increasing middle of disengaged people who show up for easter, Christmas, and Mother’s Day.
dfarning(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
People forget that mega churches go through cycles of boom and bust, just like smaller churches do. The school where I work just bought a building from a minimega (about 2,000 formerly in the congregation) that is now almost empty. Young people moved out of the area because of the high cost of housing in my area, and the old people have died off. The church is a shell of its former self with an ever-shrinking congregation. Those who are left are joining a sister church on the other side of town, and my school is remodeling it as a TK and office building.
Mid-size churches seem to do better, from what I’ve observed. I’m in a church of about 600. We were as low as 300 a few years ago, and then we got a new pastor who worked hard on reaching out to surrounding community with a preschool and after school programs. It has brought in a number of new families. We have no aspirations to be a mega as we are landlocked and can improve existing buildings, but not add new ones. We actually started a new church in the north side of our city two years ago, and it has done very well, with attendance up to about 200.
I think that Stanley has rocks in his head about many things. I don’t know that much Ed Young.
Linn(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
I was a Southern Baptist for 70 years; I’m a “Done” now since New Calvinism took over the SBC by stealth and deception.
There are 47,000 SBC churches … the majority have less than 200 members. This has always been the case. While there are mega SBC churches, they are the exception.
Max(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Let me refresh you about Grinning Ed Young.
Many years ago, on the same Sunday where Western-rite Liturgical Churches were celebrating the Feast of Christ the King, PASTOR Ed Young proclaimed a “Seven-Day Christian Sex Challenge” sitting with his wife in a large bed onstage. This actually made it into an episode of GCB and according to my search engine may have gotten bootlegged onto Pornhub.
Grinning Ed followed this up with a 24-hour “Sexperiment” livestreamed “bed-in” discussing Christian sex and answering live phone-ins with the same wife in the same bed on the roof of his mega. This was cut short when they both went snowblind from sun-glare reflected off the roof (The sun shines bright deep in the Heart of Texas).
Above and beyond the usual: Private Jet, million-dollar salary plus 1/4 million housing allowance, The Ed Young Show on TBN, personal TV network…
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
And with the amount of overhead expenses for a rig that big, a bust can put them under permanently.
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Two Southern Baptist churches I was a member of – First Baptist Daytona Beach and Colonial Heights Baptist Church in Ridgeland, MS – had a growth spurt in the late 90’s and had ambitions to become megachurches. Around 2000, both purchased land and started fundraising campaigns to build large new buildings. The fundraising campaigns failed. Both ended up building much smaller buildings on their new land, with attendance plunging from 1400 to 1800 in the early 2000’s to around 500 to 600 now.
Troy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Most of the megas are built around a charismatic leader … a cult of personality. When the celebrity leaves, mega becomes mini.
Max(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Something to consider when thinking about this is how most Christian churches over the last ten centuries have tended to rotate clergy every couple of years (4-7 years is most common in recent decades) to prevent this situation.
It is a known and understood situation when the focus is on individuals rather than the church as a whole, undesirable things start to happen.
I am curious if we are going to start seeing ‘reformation style’ movements away from charismatic leader-style churches in the coming decades. My possible naive guess is that the pull of prestige, power, and money in the mega-churchs will be impossible to reform.
Something I have been watching with great interest is how, in the past, my community has had strong ecumenical efforts to meet underserved social needs. Over the last few years, one large local church has been crowding out those ecumenical groups using a process of ’embrace, extend, extinguish’ until other churches leave the organizations that they started.
dfarning(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
There would be no charismatic leaders, no prestige, no power … if it weren’t for churchgoers desiring it … God has a way of giving us what we want if we don’t want Him. There would be no actor on a stage if it weren’t for a gullible audience willing to buy tickets to the show.
Max(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
I completely agree with Max..
Jeffrey Chalmers(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Very few Joseph Smiths are followed by a Brigham Young who can turn the mega into a self-sustaining system.
Philosophical Cults – with a focus other than The Person of The Great One – have a much better chance of surviving their founder. Communism outlasted Naziism and the Unarians outlasted the other Space Brothers Saucer Cults.
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
“If you Build it, They Will Come.” — Field of Dreams
PASTOR’s Furtick Mansion and Private Jet, Here I Come!
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Talked to an old friend the other day. She and her family are part of reviving an old UMC congregation since their church voted to go bigot.
nmgirl(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Just because I like my sporting events in big venues, and my theatre going the same way, doesn’t mean that is how I want to worship God. I want that experience to be different. First of all it is weekly, unlike other “events” and also much like a sporting event I want to know that God, my team, is winning. So the smaller church with less overhead that does more for the community, with a pastor who is hands-on with visiting church members, at home or in the hospital, answering calls at the church office, knowing each member, etc. seems more God-like to me and someone I want to support. I will say I am glad that Andy S. apologized. Is the Holy Spirit’s new way of getting through to pastors via social media pressure?
JJallday(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
And Adrian, that song is now going to live rent-free in my head for at least a week. Bravo! Spot on!
JJallday(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
He can even cause the rocks to cry out!
Max(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
When I hear the word “oartory”, two things come to mind:
1) Pencil/paper/funny dice gaming, when this one player had to roll on a “Fast Talk” skill to talk his way out of a sticky situation. Player rolled the dice while saying “ORATORY! ORATORY! ORATORY!”
2) Anecdote from a 1943 OSS pysch profile of one Adolf Hitler, when said future cult leader was on the bum in turn-of-the-century Vienna, not averse to “shady ways of making money.”
Such as selling shopkeepers a paste to be spread on their shop windows to keep them from fogging/frosting over in winter. The gimmick was to do this in summer when it couldn’t be tested out.
When someone else at the flophouse pointed out the flaw in this scheme – that the shopkeepers/marks would tell him to come back in winter – the future cult leader drew himself up and answered “One must have a Talent for Oratory.”
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
What the institutional church doesn’t get is that a “great orator” is not necessarily called by God to preach the Gospel. Most churchgoers mistake a gift of gab for the anointing to preach. The American pulpit is full of men who can deliver an articulate sermon, but don’t truly know God (IMO).
Max(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Fellowship Church has sold (or tried to sell) at least four of its offsite locations:
1. The one in Keller (the first of the offsite locations) he sold to a non-traditional Church of Christ (one that actually allows instrumental music).
2. The Miami location was literally sold out from under the congregation: it was announced during a service that he sold it to Vous Church (run by Rich Wilkerson Jr.)
3. The South Biscayne location (which wasn’t in Miami, but in North Port which is on the Gulf side of the state) is now the home of Foundation Church.
4. The Norman location was for sale in 2021 when I had to travel to OKC for business and noticed the sign on the outside of the building.
Not to mention that large portions of land around the Grapevine location have been sold to various interests (notably, Samaritan’s Purse either bought or received a donation of land, which it now uses as a staging center for disaster relief).
Mark R(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
I used to attend FC. Ed, by his own admission, bragged that he spent only 8 hours/week studying for his sermons, and the rest of the time “vision casting” (I STILL don’t know what that is, it sounds demonic if you ask me)
Mark R(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
In the words of the prophet Alfred Yankovic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyV_UG60dD4
P.S. Not “sounds demonic”, more like “sounds like Shirley Mac Laine Woo-Woo”.
Or TRENDY Buzzword Bingo.
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Y’all realize that Dee is fluent in MBA speak. I understand that the diploma is available upon request.
Loved it, HUG!
And now let’s return to vision casting some sunlight onto hypocrisy and other bad boy behavior in the Christian church.
Grumpy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
I would be up for a season of “pastor casting” … casting some bad-boy preachers and false prophets out of the church permanently!
Max(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
“If something has you down,
Makes you worry, fret and frown,
And caus»es lots of pain and irritation;
You*ll be rid of it right quick
If you know this simple tricks
Just use DEEENESTRATION!”
— Tom Digby, “Defenestration”, 1973 filksong
Defenstration = Literally “out the window”, a Medieval form of vigilante justice.
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
HUG, I don’t know that song; thanks for the post. That and “pastor casting” vaguely remind me of what some Rabbi said about millstones.
Regarding songs by The Prophet, we could dedicate them to various bad lads on this site!
Open to suggestions for the following:
Word Crimes
Canadian Idiot (I have a suggestion if you don’t)
White and Nerdy
My Bologna
And feel free to add songs to the list!
Grumpy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
“Defenestration” comes out of “Filksinging”, the novelty song tradition of SF fandom.
It’s mostly an oral tradition, with almost entirely small-press distribution. Not many outside of Filk cirsles know about it.
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)