Greetings from Guatemala City!
I am here with Assistant Director Patricia Christian attempting to establish research agreements with two megachurches. Last evening we had a lengthy conversation with the pastor of Vida Real, a sprawling megachurch whose central auditorium is matched by nine additional locations throughout Central America. What is unique about Vida Real is that, while each satellite church has its own pastoral staff, the high octane music and sermon each weak comes from the central church and is broadcast over the church’s television station. I do not think I have ever encountered a church this dependent on virtual communication and it will be very interesting to examine how this virtual transmission connects to parishioners.
As of July, others in our research project began to pick up where they had left off before we were sidelined by the pandemic. Andrew Johnson made a visit to Brazil and developed relationships with two churches there. Afe Adogame and the research team from Nigeria organized a very influential conferences on Megachurches held at the Redeemed Church of God in Nairobi. (As soon as it is available we will make this conference available online—see the conference website, here.)
In mid-July, along with Tyler Kauffmann, our film director, I journeyed to Ghana and met with Ghanian researchers and church leaders in the Church of Pentecost. We were supposed to continue our travels to Nigeria to attend a TMCP sponsored conference on megachurches in Lagos, but the Nigerian consulate, overrun by covid related requests, did not act quickly enough to get us visas. Our trip was cut short and we presented our panel over zoom from Ghana. Although the Australian government still does not allow travel currently, Jeaney Yip has been organizing the Indonesian project from her home in Sydney, and Chad Bauman is actively working from the US with his India team in organizing the project there. Kwangsuk Yoo and his team in Korea have been actively at work in their churches, despite dangerous rates of covid, and Joel Tejedo and his team in the Philippines have already administered leaders surveys to several pastors in the Christ Commission Fellowship church in Manila.
Due to Covid delays in our research, we have revised our timeline for the remainder of the grant into three stages over the period from June 1, 2021, to December 31, 2022. We are moving cautiously to implement this project despite low vaccination rates in some countries, the need for constant testing, difficulty with visa procurement, and the dismal fact that most churches are still in some sort of lockdown and held to 25% capacity. Church leaders everywhere are admitting that the impact of the pandemic is not only related to public health. It has greatly impacted their ability to conduct in person services and collect money. Most churches are ramping up media outreach through streaming beyond the church.
Over the next few months various researchers will be presenting papers at important international conferences. We will present two panels at the Annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion later this month, and in November several of us will present papers at the Annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in San Antonio. Texas. Just before the AAR, our entire research team will hold its first in person meeting at the Valencia Hotel in San Antonio. This will be a prime opportunity to meet each other in person, in many cases, for the first time and really grapple with themes emerging from our research.