Megachurches coming in shadow of Washington

African American megachurches are rising in Baltimore-Washinginton corridor and may meet some social needs that the government is not, according to the article's focus.

The comments on the article are fascinating and reflect a wide range of strong opinions as to whether churches or religion at all is a good thing, whether these churches care strongly about poverty or whether they are an exploitive scam to make the pastor rich, whether social programs to help the poor are effective, whether the focus of these churches is helping the rich or the poor, etc.

On of the recurrent themes of this weblog (Perspectives in public health) is to explore the conditions or forces that lead to the rise and evolution of multicellular entities and their analogies at larger scales, from people to corporations, churches, cultures, nations, and planets. Whether this is a "force" or a "design" or an emergent outcome, it seems to be everywhere.

With corporations, certainly, there many be an original goal of the founder of personal wealth but as the corporation takes shape, other forces analogous to angular momentum dominate development and instead of collapsing into a purely greed-enhancing exobody, the corporate entity takes on "a life of its own" and an agenda of its own, often deciding to throw out the original founder entirely.

CEO's, pastors, presidents, and kings may think they're in charge, but they are often in charge of much less than you would think.

These corporate or collective entities aren't considered by biologists today to be "alive", but since they are self-regulating, energy-consuming, goal-seeking thingies, I put them in the category I call MAWBA - "Might As Well Be Alive." Public health has models for general "multilevel" studies, but this particular shape and species of multilevel doodad where each level has an independent life of its own seem particularly interesting and relevant to humans.

There is the ever-present question, which the programs in public health focus on heavily, of how to measure whether assistance to a group of people is effective, and the need to focus on empowering and organizing the recipients to end up better able to take care of themselves and not become dependent. "Teach a man to fish..."

Some of the comments reflect racism, others deal with the search for identity in America, and some reflect a search for power and influence in America.

On that note, the stunning rise of senator Barack Obama in popularity and his visit to New Hampshire in the last few days shows that the times are changing in the USA. Wikipedia's article on Obama has some interesting links, and an interesting strategy of blocking unregistered and newly registered users of Wikipedia from making changes to the text in the search for the "neutral point of view" and is fascinating in its own right.

Anyway, the Washington Post has an article today discussing the demographic changes in Charles County, Maryland. The Southern Baptist group, that was very effective at organizing and providing relief on location following hurricane Katrina, is among the growing population.

"If it wasn't for the churches and their support, a lot of people would be living in the woods," said another participant, Dean Stachura, 41.

An army of volunteers from First Baptist Church of Glenarden, which has a 7,000-member congregation, came several times this year to Nanjemoy, a severely impoverished rural area of Charles. They provided free clothing, household goods and books, as well as dentistry and other medical services.

Local churches were so impressed that they asked First Baptist to guide them in conducting their own social programs.

Megachurches MIgrating to Charles

Boom Mirrors Population Growth

By Philip Rucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, December 12, 2006; A01

The Rev. Rodney J. Blackmon has a vision. He wants to build a megachurch along a rural road in Charles County.

He sees computer labs, playgrounds and athletic facilities. There would be classrooms to train entrepreneurs to become millionaires. The sanctuary would seat 2,500 people, and the chapel would hold 800 more.

Megachurch leaders in Prince George's have been teaching their counterparts in modest black churches in Charles how to organize programs for the homeless and clean-up efforts in poverty-stricken areas. They also have been advising them about successfully winning government funding for faith-based initiatives.

The number of new faith-based social programs "has jumped dramatically," said Sandy Washington, executive director of a Charles alliance of black ministers. "We've said, 'Listen, there's some basic needs.' "

African Americans have almost exclusively driven the rapid growth in Charles. The county's white population remained relatively stagnant between 2000 and 2005, while its black population increased by more than 50 percent, according to census estimates. Blacks now make up about 34 percent of Charles's roughly 139,000 residents.

African American megachurches -- roughly defined as having more than 2,000 worshipers -- have been rising in suburbs across the country, in such places as Atlanta, Chicago and Houston. Their large congregations generate huge resources, which allow them to do significant social missionary work.

"The megachurch model is a predominant model now," Best said. "That's the goal of a lot of churches: to reach that level in terms of what they can do with regard to social programs."

In Charles, LifeStyles Inc., a faith-based community services organization affiliated with the black ministers group, launched a program one year ago to provide dinner and overnight shelter in churches for homeless people during the winter months.

technorati tags:churches, socialneeds, socialwork, megachurches, charlescountry, washington, poverty, black, africanamerican