A bit of the Vatican comes to nation's capital
Take one part church, one part interactive museum, a touch of art gallery, a dash of bold architectural design, a theological think tank and a small theater, then throw in a cafeteria and two gift shops for good measure, and you have a destination designed not only to inform but, as its creators say, to lift the soul.
It's the new Pope John Paul II Cultural Center, above, which opened March 22 in Washington, D.C.
A stone's throw from the Catholic University of America and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, it was designed as a "presidential library" dedicated to the man who since 1978 has presided as spiritual leader of the world's estimated 1 billion Roman Catholics.
The $65 million center has three major components:
The Intercultural Forum serves as a center of scholarly research and teaching through a number of endowed Chairs of Faith and Culture.
The Interactive Museum Experience includes state-of-the-art exhibits, printed materials, art objects and other items related to the papacy, theology, evangelization, and faith and culture.
The Exhibits Gallery houses permanent and rotating exhibitions drawn from collections of the Vatican Museums and other Christian art from throughout the world as well as items specifically related to the life and ministry of Pope John Paul II.
The cup no longer runneth over
The volunteers dreaded going to church each Thursday evening to begin filling the more than 350 trays for Sunday's Holy Communion. It took seven people up to 30 hours over three days to fill communion cups for the congregation at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., which has more than 15,000 members.
No more. Not since inventor Wilfred Greenlee joined the church and came up with a machine that cuts the preparation time to 1 1/2 hours.
The Greenlee Communion Dispensing Machine is made of a stainless steel bucket with 40 plastic tubes that run through a sheet of Plexiglas into the cups of a communion tray. A push of a lever on the side allows just enough grape juice to fill each cup half full.
"No overflowing and no spills," said Greenlee, 78.
Greenlee's communion machine, which he makes by hand in a workshop at his house, sells for $2,995.
Church makes Internet part of religious experience
Bandwidth. Streaming media. Web portals.
Terms once exclusive to Internet startups now are entering a nonprofit region of cyberspace: dot-com churches.
Many are offering more than just an e-mail address, including Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Tex.
The 12,000-member church recently overhauled its Web site to take a Net-centric approach to spreading the Gospel, said Senior Pastor Ed Young, above.
Church leaders envision fellowship
church.com as a Web portal a one-stop shop for stock quotes, news and sports updates, and Scripture.
The site includes a virtual bookstore where patrons can purchase Bibles, videotapes and DVDs, and music in CD and MP3 formats. There's a library of digitized sermons delivered by Young that can be viewed for free from a home computer, as well as a scheduling system where congregants can register for Bible classes and intramural sports.
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