Travis
> I am told by someone who knows that WCC has a two tier
> membership structure, one for folks who attend the
> Sunday services and participate in the social life,
> who (I understand) are discouraged from even
> contributing money, or maybe not permitted to; and a
> committed cadre membership which more than tithes. The
> mass membership is intermittently approached for cadre
> membership, but the latter is a real commitment.
>
> The nontraditional approach was apparently derived
> from nonprofessional but intelligently run marketing
> surveys conducted by the founders, who went around
> gathering data on why people didn't go to church.
>
> Maybe left groups might take a cue. Unions are: the
> SEUI has been studying the WCC and other big box
> churches to see how they, as one says in today's
> repulsive jargon, "grow" their membership.
>
>
> --- Chuck <chuck at mutualaid.org> wrote:
>
> > Michael J. Smith wrote:
> >
> > > Actually this is not a bad description of the
> > Middle America where I grew
> > > up. Most everybody went to church, though often
> > not every Sunday. But
> > > cases of deep commitment, much less fanaticism,
> > were very much more
> > > the exception than the rule. The week-in, week-out
> > church experience
> > > was for most people, as far as I could tell, more
> > a matter of maintaining
> > > and enjoying a certain kind of social interaction
> > than anything else. Of
> > > course it was a solace in times of bereavement and
> > trouble, too, and I
> > > imagine that most people were believers in some
> > not-too-stringent
> > > sense. But most pew-sitters were definitely not
> > militants, and it was
> > > considered very poor manners to talk about
> > religion outside of church.
> >
> > From what I see, church-going is mostly a social
> > experience for many
> > people.
> >
> > > The recent phenomenon of mega-churches -- which
> > postdates my
> > > growing-up days in Kentucky -- is best treated as
> > a branch of
> > > the entertainment industry, I would say.
> >
> > The mega-churches are really a form of privatized
> > entertainment in their
> > communities. They provide everything from basketball
> > courts to daycare
> > to coffeeshops to counseling of every kind. My take
> > is that the more
> > conservative megachurches are designed to be a total
> > cultural experience
> > for their members. They want their
> > members--especially children--to have
> > as little contact with secular society as possible.
> > The more "liberal"
> > megachurches are mainly community centers and
> > outreach centers to the
> > "unchurched."
> >
> > In one sense, megachurches are an indication that
> > our society has become
> > more secularized. Organized religion needs a big
> > gimmick to draw folks in.
> >
> > Chuck
> > ___________________________________
> >
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> >
>
>
>
>
>
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