Yes he is -- <font size = "4">The Drunks Bar </font size "4">

[ Show ]

Support VoyForums

[ Shrink ]

VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Main index ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, [10] ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 08:22:50 06/15/01 Fri
Author: SM78
Subject: Yes he is
In reply to: D.Th. 's message, "Schuler is the exception that proves the (arcitechtural) rule, no?" on 22:22:54 06/14/01 Thu

Schuler's two churches, especially the Crystal Cathedral, are inspiring. The Crytal Cathedral has a white latticework frame to which the glass panels are attached. Next to the CC is a stunning bell tower. The grounds are well landscaped and the CC is just a delight to walk around. By contrast, a scant ten miles away lies a baroque atrocity that would be the TBN World Headquarters. That place is a gaudy nightmare of High Rococo, Baroque, and the worst excuse for neo-classicism I've ever seen. It is a mishmash of bad taste, a testament to what the white trailer trash-cum-millionaires Jan and Paul Crouch can do when given what they see as Monopoly money to spend on, among other things, overly-dramatic statuary of Jesus, swooping twin staircases, and even restrooms that are too busy with excess.

Because I work in lighting, I get to be around a lot of great architecture here in Los Angeles and other cities. I have a sense of bad architecture because I've seen the best the world has to offer. The difference between most secular and Christian architecture is 1)Budget 2)Vision and 3)The confusion of form and function. A good secular architect gets to know what the client wants right away. An architect has to because they are competing for the job and have to sell to a committee or an individual with training in design and experience on many jobs. On church jobs, there is a lay committee typically dominated by the wealthiest contributor or pastor. This means that style goes out the window in favor of someone's pet concept. It is not accidental that mega-churches look like malls. The concept derives from the agora, or marketplace, in which God, food, and retail and are seamlessly woven together to provide Christians a place to be all day Sunday as the article suggested. The high maintenance costs of a mall dictate uniformity and easy-to-clean surfaces. Concrete in a lot cheaper to use than windows because concrete doesn't need to be kept clean like windows. Common areas usually have planters with trees and the only entry to the outside are skylights, and then those are used to provide a natural daylighting component to cut down on the cost of artificial lighting.

The video and sound systems in mega churches receive far more of the budget than do so many of the beautiful touches such as statues, gilded ceilings, altars, marble floors and walls, and the frescoes we see in the great Catholic cathedrals. In the big churches you see acres of institutional, high-wear Du Pont carpet and the ceilings designed by an acoustician rather than an architect. The sound-dampening panels which line the ceiling usually blend to the carpet or mass-produced walnut pews and hymnals. Throw in a few big hanging plants on the walls or some huge banners that look good on television ("Christ to the Nations in 2001" with a tongue of pentecostal fire rising up along the vertically descending letters) and what you're looking at is a television set that includes the audience as a set piece.

To that point, the pulpit with the choir behind it is always triangulated by the cameras (typically three locked cameras up in front in the classic triangle, Front, Left, Right; three locked, autonmated cameras futher back and mounted up on the walls for long audience shots to the pulpit; and then two or three handhelds) The light rack over the pulpit choir area is almost always painted black so that it disappears. In a spare-no-money approach, you will see computer-automated SSTV instruments doing the lighting according to a specific layout in which all of the pastor's marks are pre-assigned. Like a news anchor, the pastor wears a discrete earpiece so that the control booth can tell him to walk stage right and look at camera three. The teleprompter then scrolls his sermon at the scroll rate he has long ago decided he can comfortably read to. Most of the time, the scroll rate is done manually to follow the cadenence and emphasis of the pastor. So we would see it slow during an altar call and speed up during a fiery rebuke of Clinton. If the pastor loses his place on the the telepromopter there is a preassigned cue no one knows about except the control booth. He may automatically look up to the heavens or move stage left until his producer gets him back to where he was when the scroll rate threw him off. It only takes a second and looks like contemplation to the audience.

"Go to camera one and begin the altar call," the producer might tell the minister. So the minister hits his mark, looks into camera one and speaks. "Pan out to Right-two," the producer says, and you would see a long shot from an automated camera forty feet up on the rights wall as it pans and sweeps the church. "Bring up the choir," the producer orders so that we hear more of the background singing during the altar call. "Go to altar call graphics,"
is the next command and a graphic appears at the bottom of your screen with the number 1-800-SALVATION and a URL.

10:16 and the 9:30 service is almost over. The deep fryers in the Mc Donalds in the food court kick into high gear to get those hash browns cooking to meet the 10:31 demand. Starbucks brings out 600 more bagels and turns on the extra pots of coffee so they will be at the peak of freshness at 10:31. Inside a bathroom stall, a masturbating teen who hates church and his parents, hurries to bring it on home. He is supposed to be in the teen program but he instead went outside to the hotel next door, smoked some cigarettes, talked to other rebellious teens who left church with him, and then headed back to yank it in the stall at 10:05.

The church empties at 10:30 and ushers move in to clean it up for the 10:45 service. There will be another service at
12:15, and the superstar pastor takes a break backstage to talk to the producer in the control room. The pastor has already done the exact sermon twice this morning and he has it down flat. This last show will probably be the one they use the most video from when the edit the show togther for airing next week.

The natural extension of these churches is to build K-12 schools and even a college. That way, there is additional cash flow and parents can become rooted in the church-mall-school itself as an institution around which to build family. And so SteveH is right: It's too bad we can't seal off these places in domes.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

"a firey rebuke of Clinton" -- D.Th., 09:08:41 06/15/01 Fri