Posted on 12/16/2006 7:08:20 PM PST by Alex Murphy
As a sidebar to a story on the religious right, The Independent newspaper from the United Kingdom offers a brief review of some of the incredibly large Evangelical churches that are at the forefront of the movement:
Radiant Church Surprise, Arizona; members: 6,000
Radiant spends $16,000 annually on Krispy Kreme donuts. Pastor McFarland told the New York Times: ''We want the church to look like a mall, so you come in and say, 'Dude, where's the cinema?'Brentwood Baptist Church Houston, Texas; members: 12,000
Has its own McDonald's, complete with golden arches and a drive-thru.Saddleback Church Lake Forest, California; members: 22,000
Pastor Rick Warren wrote the best-selling non-fiction book in the US's history: The Purpose Driven Life. Bar codes are assigned to babies in the nursery to avoid losing them.The Potter's House Dallas, Texas; members: 28,000
Led by the influential African-American pastor, TD Jakes, it has its own publishing house, daily talk show, a prison ministry that broadcasts to over 260 prisons, and a recording studio that has produced a Grammy-award-winning record.Lakewood Church Houston, Texas; members: 30,000
The largest megachurch in the US. Joel Osteen's church meets in the former home of the Houston Rockets and has already outgrown the arena. Plans have been discussed to "franchise" the church in other cities.
That has GOT to make some pretribbers go nuts....
Bar codes are old hat. RFID is the new "Mark of the Beast". Speaking of MotB - anyone familiar with Ellis Skolfield?
I was looking for a picture of a bar coded baby and I found this instead. LOL
http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/pro-freedom.co.uk/666.html
Now excuse me while I go inventory supplies in the bunker.
That bar code doesn't show the 3 sixes on it. Come to think of it, neither does this Pepsi bottle in my hand.
Do any of these congregations have any, what-cha-callit, "gravity"? Dignity, the "chobod" thing?
Are the donuts for the celebration of the Lords' supper?
my church has a cafe and coffee shop and a town square that has a mall feel to it as well. I thought it was cool at first but seeing they have struggled to find place for the children to go all i see how of those secular areas is waisted space!
Thousands of dollars in donuts, McDonalds, a mall appearance.....
It doesn't say much for those so called churches.
Church is the Word, Holy Communion,liturgy and good 16th -17th Century hymns.
If you go to church to be entertained, food, and convenience it doesn't say much about a person's spirituality and religion
One of the church Mgmt Software companies does have a module that has barcode reader integration, so that for instance, you could swipe a card in order to track donations. A church that is a local client has stayed away from it for precisely the reason that members do not feel comfortable being "tracked".
Oh it's just some media idiot being.........well, an idiot. There are software packages galore that kick out 'tags' for kids, volunteers, etc.....that have names, barcodes, etc. It's a simply administrative/tracking tool that somehow becomes 'nefarious' in the hands of Christian bashers.
Lighten up.
I would have thought that pretribbers would be the ones who this stuff wouldn't bother. The pretribber would believe he (the saved and those under the age of accountability) would be 'taken up' before the Anti-Christ and his mark.
Those who belive in mid or post trib I would think would be going nuts since they believe the Church will experience the wrath and persecution of the Anti-Christ, and in the case of the post tribber, God's wrath also.
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