NAK: Auf der anderen Seite des Grossen Teichs II - kommentiert von Shalom

[GG001]

where did 'house church' come from - is this something new that I missed (that'd be a good sign that I'm so totally removed from the situation that I didn't hear about this).

if this is a new policy, then isn't that sad that they've gone full circle in 100 years. that's how the NAC started in the US and now it's right back to people's living rooms.
http://nacboard.yuku.com/sreply/93240/House-Church

Interesting how it used to be you could not get into the kingdom of heaven unless you went to 3 services a week. Then it was 2. Now it is drive to church every other Sunday.

It used to be home churches were how they tried to start a congregation in a new area. Now it is how they get the remaining members together after they sell their building.
http://nacboard.yuku.com/sreply/93246/House-Church

[Heinrich]

Werter GG001,

das ist nichts anderes als eine Reaktion auf immer weniger werdende Gottesdienstbesucher.

Haben wir doch auch. Und manchmal schmerzt es wirklich, wie Leute aus der Gemeinde vor den Kopf gestossen werden. Und dann völlig zu Recht sagen: LMAA.

Gruss aus dem Süden,
Heinrich

[GG001]

NAC Conference Center auf Long Island
https://sites.google.com/site/nacconferencecenter/home

Wie schoen sich auch die Danksagung des "Woodbury Media Teams" macht:

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Aus: https://sites.google.com/site/nacconfer ... imonials-1
Blindtextgeneratoren findet der geneigte Leser, sofern er sie braucht, im Internet.

Demgegenueber ist das Lob der "National Organization of The New Apostolic Church" schon klarer verstaendlich und ueber Zweifel erhaben, obschon etwas steif:

We were amazed at the audio, video recording and the ability to stream, even though we didn't know the first thing about that stiff.

Wir wissen es nicht, aber ein schoener Hinweis besagt, es koennte so gehen: Click!

Mehr dazu im Nacboard.

The Woodbury church was built to serve a dual purpose as a church and also a conference center. It is in a corporate park and I believe that they are hoping that they can rent to the neighboring companies. The idea is that the building can be rented out to generate income. The church has a full time employee in Woodbury to do this. I am not sure how successful they have been to date. If you look, they at the pictures on the above site, they have a curtain that comes down to cover the emblem for when it is rented out.

[GG001]

Vertrieb der Unsere Familie / Our Family

An article about changes to the Our Family can be found on the last page of the Our Family, October 2014 issue, "The Church adopts a new approach in communication".

excerpt from article:

"...With the new year, a new online news portal will be started by the New Apostolic Church International. nac.today is the name of the new website, which will carry the news of the New Apostolic world in English, French, German, and Spanish. An additional offer is planned with the magazine community. It will comprise 32 pages of international content and will appear once each quarter. It is to be distributed to all New Apostolic households--either online or in a print version. This was decided by the District Apostle Meeting last year. As a result, the Our Family will cease publication at the end of this year... The Church leaders have decided that those regions in which African Joy and the German issue of the Our Family (Unsere Familie) are read are exempted from this..."

So, basically, the Germans get to keep their printed magazine and it sounds like the Africans do too. Well, given that the NAC would be, based on demographics, an African church. That makes sense. However, as the numbers of english speaking (US and Canada) members continue to drop, I wonder in the overall scheme of things how much money they will be saving by discontinuing the magazine.

Quelle: Nacboard

[GG001]

Nachtrag 2014-10-11 zum Beitrag vom 2014-10-08, NAC Conference Center auf Long Island: die Seite mit den teilweise unsinnigen Kundenbewertungen ist inzwischen nur noch mit Anmeldung zugaenglich (auch die Hauptseite ist nicht mehr ohne weiteres einsehbar; da wird es schwierig, fuer den Veranstaltungsort (deutsch: Lokeischn) Werbung zu machen).

As of now, I can't access the link or any of the subpages because I don't have permission (I could access them yesterday).
I wanted to ask why the text on the services page was in a foreign language (Latin, I think). Did anyone else notice this?
BTW, are the members cleaning this huge structure, and doing landscape maintenance, or did the NAC hire services for this work?

Reply: BatP
So they do monitor nacboard...
Quelle: Nacboard

... oder "sie" lesen evtl. auch deutsche Foren. Und nein, bei dem sinnlosen lateinischen Blindtext handelt es sich nicht um "a transcript from a service", wie ein Schreiber sueffisant anmerkte.

[GG001]

Mitgliederschwund: Spaltung oder Exodus in der NAC?

Godfather wrote: How about the schism that is currently in process whereby probably the greatest 'drop out' rate in the church's history is taking place.
I've seen vague references to similar experiences in Europe (particularly non-German speaking areas) - but I can't imagine the NAC (especially that it is not that old) has ever had such a dramatic and rapid drop out within one generation.
I would guess that current regular attendance in North America compared to 20 years ago is half or lower.

Godfather,

I would argue that there is a distinction between a schism and an exodus. I think what is happening right now is an exodus as opposed to a schism. The leaving members aren't forming any type of "offshoot" of the NAC. Instead, they are either finding a church that better suits them or are leaving organized religion completely.

That's a good distinction. I was just thinking (somewhat facetiously) about the numbers that have left (for whatever reason). My guess is that the only other periods that could come close to the current exodus would be prior schisms.

Quelle: http://nacboard.yuku.com/topic/1012/NAC-Schisms

[GG001]

Lange Wege zur Kirche kosten Geld
Sie belasten auch die Seelsorger, IMHO sogar ueberproportional.

The gorilla in the room, IMO, is the contraction of the church organization from its members. I personally know members upon whom the strain of keeping that contact is so great that their household budgets are breaking...others have broken contact due to that strain. In some of those cases, "local" ministers are having to make lengthy trips to members' homes to maintain any pastoral contact at all. How long will or can that effort last? This has created a great deal of stress for the families that are all in when it comes to their religious belief...now, even smaller things such as receiving the Our Family are going away.

Irrationality and zealotry have caught up with the organization, but the price is paid, again, by the members.

"Godfather" answers:

That's why I think NAC North America has less than 25 years left.

The seniors will put themselves through the heartache, because they've done so for a lifetime already - but I can't imagine that any more than 10% of people under the age of 30 would.

I saw a photograph yesterday of myself when I was 6, singing with our Sunday school - and it brought back good memories: a local congregation 7 minutes from our home that was always full on Sunday mornings with plenty of Ad Bros to share the load and plenty of members to care for the church, etc. It was a thriving community. Prior to confirmation class, I never even really thought of NAC as anything other than my local congregation - and those were good times. That all ended once I was exposed to Kraus' Mania and all the Ad Bros from other congregations in the District who wanted to prove that they were more Kraus than the next guy and did so with a militant like blind zeal inflicted upon the Young People....20 years later, the entire District is not much bigger than the congregation I attended as a kid. As Kraus always said, "You reap what you sow".
Quelle: http://nacboard.yuku.com/sreply/93350/NAC-Schisms

[GG001]

Eine US-seitige Sicht auf das Einstellen der englischen Ausgaben der UF:

From my understanding of how the OUR FAMILY works --- this just means that the English speaking markets decided they don't want to pay for it anymore. From what I understand, in the days of Kraus he (the church) paid the Verlag for the magazines - and shipped them to the members for FREE. (in Germany they sell them). More recently - I know for a fact that those magazines are printed in the USA in the NY area. So I imagine they pay for the translated files - and saved cost by shipping here. But seeing that most US members don't even care about this magazine, and they are making CUTS everywhere in the USA - it makes perfect sense to just get rid of the thing. It's irrelevant to the US & saves the DA a boatload of $. Everyone here is already more interested in his 'vision' newsletter which they get for free & is much cheaper to print & much more relevant to their local church life.
http://nacboard.yuku.com/sreply/93362/O ... as-of-2015

Was die verbleibende Lebensdauer der NAC dort drueben angeht, sind etliche Schreiber ziemlich pessimistisch. Zum Beispiel "Godfather": Click!

[GG001]

I began reading over this thread and found that analysis that KBB performed close to the beginning of 2014. There were 242 (217 active and 24 opened/active) active congregation as compared to 338 in 1996. An update should be done to see how many more closed/were sold in 2014. I give it until the end of next year until they are down to 175 congregations or less in the US.

* Just did a quick and dirty cut and paste from the church locator on the nac-usa.org website and there is roughly 230 church locations so it already seems to reflect some closures from the beginning of the year.

http://nacboard.yuku.com/sreply/93481/N ... h-Closings

Liste update: http://nacboard.yuku.com/sreply/93482/N ... h-Closings

[GCII]

Wenn man die Apostel der Vergangenheit in der heiligen Schrift betrachtet, um Vergleiche heranzuziehen erkennt man das diese nur Gesandte waren. Im Kampf gegen die Natur muss der voll durchgeplante Mensch sich für einige Teile des Lebens Beispiele aus anderen Lebensbereichen suchen.