Inspired by Starbucks
Charismatic Pastors Grow New Flocks Overseas,
Using Satellites, DVds and Franchise Marketing
To Spread Their Own Brand of Religion.
By ALEXANDRA ALTER
June 13, 2008; Page W1
Lima, Peru
Josh Ritchie/Rapport Press (3) and Karel Navarro/Getty Images (4) both for The Wall Street Journal
Flamingo Road services in Lima, Peru, and Cooper City, Fla.
On a recent Sunday, worshippers gathered in a multiplex theater next to a Starbucks, McDonald's and T.G.I. Friday's. The lights dimmed and the Rev. Troy Gramling, a goateed man dressed in jeans, T-shirt and blazer, filled the screen. "God knows your secret, and he loves you anyway," he said. "Isn't that cool?" A few people answered, "Amen," as if Mr. Gramling was there preaching, instead of 2,650 miles away in Cooper City, Fla.
While missionaries have long carried their message overseas, a new generation of churches is spreading a strain of evangelical Christianity with worship services as slickly packaged as any U.S. franchise. Rather than seeking converts to a mainstream denomination, these independent churches are forming global organizations anchored by a single leader. Many far-flung congregants watch their pastor via satellite or DVD each week; the services abroad are designed to replicate Sundays at the home church.
Mr. Gramling's Flamingo Road Church, which has a weekly attendance of 8,000, is based in Broward County, Fla., where he records his sermons on DVD for screenings here, as well as at three branches in South Florida. Each church uses the same distinctive music, banners and logo -- a white cube bisected by a black curving road. Mr. Gramling says he tried to copy the success of Starbucks by assembling a creative team to hone "the look, the feel, the branding idea, of what Flamingo Road is." Like Starbucks, Mr. Gramling is thinking big. His goal is 50 churches world-wide, 100,000 members and a $150 million-a-year budget.
Interactive map of seven churches with global reach
At least half a dozen U.S. mega-churches have opened international branches in recent years, and plans are in the works for many more. "If Starbucks can start four stores a day, why can't churches?" says John Bishop, the pastor at Living Hope Church. His congregation in Vancouver, Wash., which has a weekly attendance of 6,000, has 23 satellite churches, including new sites in New Zealand, India, Mexico and the Philippines. The Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, La., has eight U.S. branches, and in the past year opened churches in Mozambique and Swaziland. Celebration Church in Jacksonville, Fla., with 10,000 members, recently launched branches in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe and Atiquipa, Peru. "We try to keep consistent what we call the DNA of our church, much like a business would," says Celebration's pastor, Stovall Weems.
These super churches have the resources to expand overseas, as only mainstream denominations could in the past. With a large base of followers, the biggest independent churches have "as much money as a small denomination, so they're creating denominations of themselves," says Dana Robert, co-director of the Center for Global Christianity and Mission at Boston University. Flamingo Road, which is named after the street that fronts the main church, spends about $130,000 a year to run its Lima branch, a fraction of its $7.5 million annual budget. That money, as well as plans to spend $1 million on a live satellite system to link the campuses, are strategic investments for a toehold in a growing overseas market.
"The religious market is saturated in the U.S.," says Manuel Vasquez, co-author of "Globalizing the Sacred: Religion Across the Americas." "There is a sense now that you have to go international to expand your reach if you want to be a player." By 2025, seven of 10 Christians will live in Africa, Latin America and Asia, according to Philip Jenkins, author of "The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity." In Africa, Christians make up nearly half of the continent's population, up from about 10% in 1900.
A haze of morning fog and pollution cloaked downtown as volunteers on a recent Sunday transformed the Cineplanet Alcázar Theater into a branch of Mr. Gramling's church. Next to movie posters for "Indiana Jones," hung an 8-foot banner, "Flamingo Road: One Church, Where You Are." Greeters passed out glossy church brochures. At a table near the popcorn and drink counter, people browsed Bibles in English and Spanish. There was a sign-up sheet for baptisms during an upcoming visit by Mr. Gramling, and DVD copies of his past sermons.
Karel Navarro/Getty Images for Wall Street Journal
A prerecorded sermon in Lima
The Lima church receives weekly FedEx shipments with components of the Flamingo Road brand: Mr. Gramling's recorded sermons; business cards with the church name, logo and service times; color brochures that advertise sermon themes for the month, and MTV-style documentaries on such topics as lust and temptation for the youth services. Staff members and volunteers get Flamingo Road T-shirts and dog tags.
Inside the theater, about 150 worshippers clapped and swayed to a 10-piece rock band. "God is awesome, he's so awesome, God is awesome in this place," they sang. During his sermon, Mr. Gramling compared King David's struggle to control his desire for the married woman Bathsheba with WWE wrestling.
"Sometimes, you feel like he is here," church member Fiorella Bernal, 21 years old, says of Mr. Gramling. Ms. Bernal, who used to attend a Baptist church, has never met the pastor. She joined Flamingo Road in January and now sings in the church band. She also attends the weekly Saturday night youth service at a jazz club. Ms. Bernal says she admires Mr. Gramling's preaching style: "He talks about everything. Nothing's taboo."
Anibal Pinedo, 25, a translator, says he's still not accustomed to watching prerecorded sermons. "I don't like that he's not here," he says. But Mr. Pinedo, who was raised Catholic, says he likes the services, upbeat music and Mr. Gramling's skill at applying biblical teachings to everyday life. "I feel like he's my pastor because of his message," he says. Max Vergara Fowler, 45, another former Catholic, says he started attending a year ago after he heard an ad on the radio. "The Catholic Church is too rigid," he says. "I feel more comfortable here."
Some of Mr. Gramling's sermons fail to translate well. One, about being "tattooed for Christ," confused congregants who thought the pastor was advocating real tattoos. In another sermon series, called "I've Screwed Up," Mr. Gramling urged congregants to confess their sins anonymously on the church Web site. Some congregants were scandalized, particularly those who were raised in the Catholic Church, where confession is administered by a priest.
Josh Ritchie/Rapport Press for The Wall Street Journal
The Rev. Troy Gramling onstage
After the sermon, Steve Guschov, an American expatriate who oversees the Lima church, collects the offering in a popcorn container. Flamingo Road Church launched its Lima branch nearly two years ago, after several mission trips to Peru by Mr. Gramling. He recruited Mr. Guschov, a 43-year-old lawyer from Boston, who had moved to Lima to work as a missionary. To attract congregants, Mr. Guschov and his Peruvian wife, Dorcas, offered free movie tickets and sandwich coupons to first-time visitors. They advertised on a rock radio station and posted fliers and brochures outside English language classes. Today, 100 people attend the 9 a.m. Spanish-language service, which has a live translator, and 200 people worship at the 10:30 a.m. English service. The church attracts mostly young, middle-class Peruvians, many of them former Catholics.
A charismatic, self-taught preacher from Paragould, Ark., Mr. Gramling, 41, joined Flamingo Road's staff as an assistant pastor in 2000. Two years later, he took over the church, which is loosely affiliated with the Baptists. Mr. Gramling says he read articles about Starbucks's branding strategy in the Harvard Business Review. He used a "coffee for Christ" campaign to recruit new members by giving away $10 Starbucks gift cards one Easter. Since 2002, his flock has swelled four-fold.
Flamingo Road and other fledgling church chains compete with mainstream denominations and local churches. Critics say franchise churches are culturally homogenous and sap local congregations, just as Wal-Mart and other big retailers squash local competitors. "The downside of McDonaldization is that everything is the same, everything is predictable," says Kurt Fredrickson of Fuller Theological Seminary. "When you're franchised, it becomes more difficult for the local flavor to come through."
Mr. Bishop, of Living Hope Church, says he is expanding abroad in part because of demand: Christians in other countries invite him to launch Living Hope churches. "It's like they're asking us, 'Can we please sell Nikes in our country?' " Mr. Bishop says. "They just love the brand."
Church franchising isn't unique to Americans. Protestant congregations in Nigeria have sites in Europe and the U.S. The Yoido Full Gospel Church of South Korea has more than 100 campuses around the world and 830,000 followers. Hillsong, an evangelical church in Sydney, Australia, has churches in London, Kiev, Ukraine, and Cape Town.
Karel Navarro/Getty Images for The Wall Street Journal
Three people pray in front of the theater concession stand.
Flamingo Road Church leaders hope Lima will be a hub for expanding throughout Peru and neighboring countries. The church is preparing to start prayer services in Iquitos, a city in the middle of Peru's rainforest, and is seeking sites in Cusco, Peru, and São Paulo, Brazil.
Recently, the Guschovs flew to Iquitos to scout locations and enlist local Christian leaders to join Flamingo Road. Iquitos, a noisy grid of corrugated tin-roofed buildings swarmed by motorcycle rickshaws, has attracted missionaries since Jesuit priests arrived in the 1500s. Today, the city draws Baptists and other mainstream denominations seeking to convert indigenous tribes along the Amazon. During a visit this month with members of the Yagua tribe, Mr. Guschov brought cooking oil, rice, sugar and soap. He prayed with 15 residents of a thatch-roofed village, which is built on the banks of an Amazon River tributary.
Mr. Guschov later met with local Christian leaders to float the idea of a Flamingo Road franchise. Many agreed English-language services would attract young Peruvians, especially those seeking jobs in tourism. Others were skeptical. Alex Litarolo Suarez, 30, who works as a translator for American missionaries, asked Mr. Guschov if he planned to feed off local congregations. "We don't see ourselves as competition, but other churches do look at it that way, unfortunately," Mr. Guschov said. "We're not trying to rob members from other churches."
After the meeting, Mr. Guschov inspected a hotel conference room that overlooked the Amazon. There was a big screen to show a sermon, and room for 150 chairs. It would do for now. "When it comes to Flamingo Road, because of the brand, we need large campuses," Mr. Gramling says. "We're not going to be satisfied with a campus running at 300."
On Sunday, Mr. Gramling preached to thousands at his Cooper City, Fla., headquarters, a 28,000-square-foot building outfitted with three 15-foot high movie screens and a 30,000-watt sound system. In his sermon, he encouraged people to tithe, saying God would bless them. Afterward, in the main church lobby, congregants lined up for free Starbucks coffee.
Write to Alexandra Alter at alexandra.alter@wsj.com
