"community" churches?
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Has anyone here had experience with these independent "nondenominational" churches that use "community" in the title? I have at times encountered street-witnesses in my area from them, and I could not verify which ones were which. One gave me a phone number that turned out more...
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The door-to-door thing is definitely a problem, especially when it is connected to the introductory questions. That is something that should NEVER be part of any church campaign. Notcie Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons don't do that? At least not to my knowledge. They stick to their motive as missionaries. I can't think of any place where Jesus himself approached anyone with more than a simple invitation, and his disciples were not told to interview, but to preach. The Catholic Church grew based on building monasteries and churchs and missions as places to which people chose to go, sometimes out of curiousity but often just because in times of famine and illness, they saw that this is where the answers lay. The Catholic Church left people who did not show up alone*.
The demographic approach is almost always done with an eye to targetting individuals or neighborhoods for aggressive take-overs, it is not marketing. "Marketing" sells. This type of questioning is related to "taking", not selling. The innocent faithful who follow such a church call are handing their information over to leaders who intend to exploit it and also giving naive people the false impression that they may carry some kind of "authority". This often engenders fear, not confidence. Most working-class people are in serious danger from this type of thing because the church leaders will then be able to characterize any of the "negative" seeming (to the church leader) responses as "risk" families and the schools take such reports seriously, hampering the progress of children based on prejudice. If families that are officially characterized as "low income" show themselves to have clean, well-furnished homes will be treated as suspicious. If there are any adults in the household who have children elsewhere who are on any kind of public insurance or foodstamps, they will be in danger of losing their medical care etc just because a church busy-body decides they "discovered" something.
And if they demonstrate any membership in civic organizations or strongly held opinions, you better believe that gets noticed! And discussed!
Think this doesn't happen? There is NO legitimate theological or evengelical reason for asking questions. Cults have effectively "taken over" more than one neighborhood or even whole town by frightening people this way.
I have have had my share of confrontation with cults. Massachusetts is probably one of the most cult-ridden states in the Union, possibly because its heavy population of Catholics left it open to cult invasion when the Catholic Church weakened during the 70's. All anyone has to do is speak out, sometimes even just accidentally, at a school committee meeting or similar, and the cult then targets the family for "concern".
I am not naming any cult in relation to my experience because I found that the cults often seem to be using the same tactics, whether they are Bible-based, New-Age, or even atheistic political or self-help cults, or aberrant versions of "liberal" churches.
The first move is to get information. The second move is to use it. The third move is to target actual and potential challengers for elimination: elimanation by conversion, or discredit, run out of town, or outright threaten. The members of cults often participate in some of these steps quite innocently, but the leadership is conscious of what it is doing in the entire campaign.
In extreme cases one could apply federal racketeering charges against some of these groups, but that is an extremely difficult path, requiring almost superhuman persistence and extensive resources. When such cases do happen, they are fought on material-criminal grounds, not theological of course, and the individuals who face charges usually are not identified as having set up a cult process, but are charged as individuals engaged in financial crime of some type. This is good as far as protecting our national freedom of association and belief, but it often is slightl
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Lots of Catholic evangelization came from entering the wilderness and meeting natives, even risking death to do so.
St. Francis de Sales converted thousands in Calvinist France and Switzerland by going door to door and speaking with them. If they wouldn't open the door, either for fear of reprisals from other Calvinists or for other reasons, St. Francis would leave brief tracts under the door.
There is a place for public evangelization, even door to door, within Catholicism, but the idea of profiling people and gathering "intel" about them to use later to manipulate them into coming to one's Church seems very disingenuous to me. I tend to think the best way would be to focus on people in your neighborhood: to tell them that you invite them to attend Mass, why you love Mass and being Catholic, and that you hope to see them there. Maybe assure them of your prayers for them and leave them some excerpts from the CCC or a tract like "Pillar of Fire, Pillar of Truth." Leave it at that.
That said, I just found out the other day that the house we are building is in the same neighborhood as the associate pastor of one of the biggest community churches in our area. I'm actually looking forward to his coming door-to-door (if he does), to share with him my Catholic faith.
"You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You." St. Augustine of Hippo
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Member since 11/08/2003
Location: USA
quote:
Originally posted by denise
The door-to-door thing is definitely a problem, especially when it is connected to the introductory questions. That is something that should NEVER be part of any church campaign.
I think this is cultural/regional. Door-to-door campaigns of all kinds are fairly common in the south, where unannounced visits are actually considered a welcome surprise. It took me a couple of years to adjust to this, being a relatively private person raised on the east coast.
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Notcie Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons don't do that? At least not to my knowledge.
You're wrong here... prior to coming on the forums my interactions with JWs and Mormons was limited to their door-to-door visits. But again, this may be a regional thing. You're right in that they don't take polls though.
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Think this doesn't happen? There is NO legitimate theological or evengelical reason for asking questions. Cults have effectively "taken over" more than one neighborhood or even whole town by frightening people this way.
I find it perfectly acceptible for people to ask questions of others out of love and concern. I agree with you that many evangelistic campaigns go overboard, but most of the participants are acting out of sincere concern for souls. Nothing wrong with that.
You make some valid points, but overall I would be just as concerned with the nature of any so-called anti-cult campaign that assumed the worst of Evangelicals as I am with the nature of evangelistic campaigns.
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Member since 07/25/2001
Location: USA
quote:
There is a place for public evangelization, even door to door, within Catholicism, but the idea of profiling people and gathering "intel" about them to use later to manipulate them into coming to one's Church seems very disingenuous to me.
Amen! Manipulative is an excellent word. That's the work of someone else.
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That said, I just found out the other day that the house we are building is in the same neighborhood as the associate pastor of one of the biggest community churches in our area. I'm actually looking forward to his coming door-to-door (if he does), to share with him my Catholic faith.
Exciting! That's the purpose of them going door-to-door, of course.
Does anyone know where to find St. Francis deSales' tracts to read online?
"Look on the bright side, if this is the best they've got around here, in six months we'll be running this planet." (Planet of the Apes)
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http://www.angelfire.com/ms/seanie/fds/fds_index.html
Excerpts.
The complete set of tracts comes from a book called "The Catholic Controversy" published by TAN and available at Amazon. I've got a copy you can borrow once it's out of temporary storage.
"You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You." St. Augustine of Hippo
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