Jefferson Banner - Opinion
John Foust - The Power Team
Jefferson Banner / Opinion / John Foust / The Power Team

 

This is the February 5 "fact sheet" from the Church regarding the Power Team as produced by Faith Community Church's PR committee. My comments are interspersed in red italics. Their original document is otherwise unchanged. If you want to read it without my comments, click here.

- John


The World’s Greatest Exhibition of Power, Strength,

Speed, Inspiration, and Motivation

The Power Team is coming to the Fort Atkinson area March 21-25th.

The Power Team brings an assembly that has been developed for over 25 years & performed in more than 25,000 schools across the United States. The Power Team school assemblies are ranked as among the best.

The school assemblies have been cancelled in the five public school districts in question. The Power Team calls its evening meetings "crusades". Let's not confuse the two events.

As for the "more than 25 years," in my email conversations with Pastor Dan Pierce that he carbon-copied to members of the Whitewater School Board, he dismissed all of my pre-2003 references to the Power Team as being tainted by the actions of John Jacobs, the founder of the original Team who has since left the group.

As for the ranking, this claim comes from the Power Team. It should be regarded like any advertising speech. I've always liked to explain the difference this way: Hype is what you say about yourself. Buzz is what other people are saying about you. The Church is repeating the Power Team's hype as Gospel.

My research was deeper than just reading and repeating the Power Team's literature. I looked for news stories.

For example, let's do the math on their claim of 25,000 performances in 25 years. One thousand assemblies a calendar year? In a school year of 180 days? That's five-and-a-half performances a day, every school day, for 25 years. Even if we assumed they could schedule two performances for three days of every five-day school week, that's only 5,400 assemblies in 25 years. That's being generous by assuming the Power Team has been booking shows consistently and continuously since they started.

Maybe they're like Santa and there is more than one Power Team. Or maybe they're counting the evening shows. Does a five-night crusade count as one performance or five? If we assume two Power Teams doing two performances every weekday 52 weeks a year for 25 years, that comes to 26,000 perfomances.

This article from April 2000 says they've conducted more than 7,000 public school assemblies. To reach 25,000 in seven years would require nearly 2,600 assemblies a year, or seven each and every day - or fourteen assemblies per school day.

In 2001, in this Charisma magazine article related to John Jacobs' assault charge, it says they had scheduled 135 crusades that year.

In this 2002 court filing related to his bankruptcy, John Jacobs, the Power Team's founder, claimed performances five times a week and in 15,000 schools.

Similarly, this August 2002 newspaper article says 15,000 assemblies.

This 2003 article says they perform about 130 crusades a year.

In February 2007, the Power Team claimed "we've performed in over 26,000 schools now".

Somehow, the Power Team performed 11,000 assemblies between 2002 and 2007, (26000-15000) or 2,200 per year.

The US Census says there were 95,615 public schools (elementary and secondary) and 29,273 private schools in the US in 2006.

Believe it or not, now the Power Team is claiming the number would be higher if it weren't for being "banned from some school districts" See this article in the Northwest (IL) Herald.

Check their web site Events page or their MySpace page for their schedule.

Let's examine 2007 in detail. There were seven crusades scheduled for February 2007, and based on overlap, it implies there are at least three Power Teams available to conduct events simultaneously. In April 2007, I see eight cities and one sports event performance. May 2007, five cities. Again, at most three travelling Teams - mostly only one or two. June, July, August - perhaps one event a month, not at schools but at church events or Christian rock festivals. As of the end of July, the Power Team web site's event page hasn't been updated; it's still showing April and May events. I'd say the summer is very slow for the Power Team.

In February 2008, senior member John Kopta claims they're now 21 members, they perform 80 crusades a year, reaching a million students and another million family members, and 73,000 people answered the altar call in the previous year. Two million people at 80 crusades means 25,000 people at each and every crusade, on average. Let's say half are at the evening meetings, and they do three days and nights. That's 8,333 people a day, 4,166 in the day, 4,166 at night. That's amazing! Yet only 73,000 people out of roughly a million make the altar call? That's only seven percent. If they can do two school assemblies a day, and do six during the crusade week, that means 700 students show up for each assembly, on average.

Why is a Power Team school assembly effective?

It's hard for a speaker wearing a suit & tie to get most students’ attention. The Power Team brings a contemporary, relevant approach to get a message into the student's heart. They use feats of strength from their massive size to get kids attention.

I think this demeans the Character Education program in our districts. In effect, it's a declaration that any existing Character Education efforts have failed because they aren't exciting enough. It implies that what we're doing now isn't enough. It says ordinary teachers aren't good enough.

This is not the message I've heard from the administrators of Jefferson's schools. Instead, they say our Character Education efforts are making a difference and they've seen positive results.

I've always liked classroom demonstrations when they're relevant to the subject matter.

What makes Character Education so different from other subject matters that it requires a circus act to sink in? This argument baffles me. I'll take this argument to an absurd extreme. Would it help to set things on fire to get their attention when teaching English? Would a smoke machine help teach math? How about playing loud music during study hall? If so, why aren't we doing these things every day?

As for their massive size - can someone confirm for me whether it's possible to get this big without the use of injected steroids and/or extensive diet modification?

What's our message?
Our message is simple…"Live a life of excellence." Make the right choices, set goals, resist peer pressure, overcome the past, academic achievement, self-awareness & value, respect authority, be aware of the dangers of drugs/alcohol/violence/ depression & suicide, realize that "true love" waits. Over 90% of the public schools principals we speak to say that The Power Team appearance was the best assembly in the history of their school.

Again, I want to know how the Power Team will present these messages. I wanted to know that school administrators have researched it and found it appropriate. Not all Character Education messages or messengers are the same, just because they use the right code words.

For example, what does "True love waits" mean?

In late 2005, Wisconsin state law was amended to require schools to teach abstinence, as follows: "Present abstinence from sexual activity as the preferred choice of behavior in relationship to all sexual activity for unmarried pupils. 2. Devote more attention to abstinence from sexual activity than to any other behavior. 3. Emphasize that abstinence from sexual activity before marriage is the most effective way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, including human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome."

This says nothing about "true love".

This bill was not passed without controversy.

I raised the question: Who verified that the Power Team's message about sexual education was consistent with each District's policies and curriculums for sexual education, as well as State law, and that it was appropriate for the grade levels who would see the Power Team's assemblies? What did they find?

As for the 90%, this is unverified marketing language from the Power Team.

"True Love Waits" is also the name of a Baptist organization that promotes abstinence by asking teens to pledge they're refrain from sex until marriage. A Yale/Columbia study over eight years of 12,000 teens who took the TLW pledge showed they married earlier than their peers and didn't differ in sexually-transmitted infection rates. Pledge-making teens did delay sexual activity by about 18 months as compared to their non-pledge peers. Numerous other studies confirm that virginity pledges do not significantly reduce the rates of sexually-transmitted infections, and that pledge-takers are less likely to use a condom if they do have sex before marriage. (WebMD, ArticleWorld, Washinton Post, Wikipedia). One study showed that among teens who pledged, a year later, half denied making the pledge.

We offer three formats:

High school, junior high, and elementary. These formats are prepared specifically for the individual age groups. We make no mention of or reference to religious material. The ACLU has attended the assemblies and found no issues. We have been conducting school assemblies for over 20 years, so what you get is outstanding quality & content. The Power Team School Assembly works because the message is relevant to the kids of today. The message is not directed towards any special interest group, but it is for everybody.

I examined news reports of Power Team assemblies in other places. It was clear that they did deliver a religious message in some public schools. Their appearance also became controversial at some schools because they took the opportunity to invite the students to the evening revival meetings, either verbally or by handing out printed literature.

Yes, I believe the Power Team will rapidly retreat from presenting a religious program when asked not to. I believe I raised a number of points that caused administrators to wonder if they could indeed control the Power Team once the assembly was happening. It caused them to wonder if they could predict and prohibit in advance all the ways they might promote the evening programs or otherwise carry out their primary mission of boosting membership in churches.

I also showed that the ACLU did protest these assemblies. See here and here regarding an appearance in Pennsylvania. It wasn't only the ACLU that signed this letter - it was also the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA), Pennsylvania NOW (National Organization for Women), Inc., Pennsylvania Alliance for Democracy (PAD), and Bradford County Alliance for Democracy.

How are the school assemblies funded?

The school pays the assembly fees or a Power Team School Lead from Faith Community Church assisted in raising donations from businesses or individuals. Faith Community Church is not paying for any of the school assemblies or materials.

I think it's misleading to suggest that the Church did not coordinate the funding of these assemblies.

I quote from Fort High School principal Jeff Zaspel on January 22: "This event is being sponsored by Faith Community Church, who is renting the school for the evening program and paying custodial costs per our district policy for the event they are sponsoring. The Power Team charges $500 per school assembly and those funds are being raised in the community by Faith Community Church."

Each District's funding situation was different. Some used a mix of donations and school funds, often grants designed for anti-drug messages. Jefferson used Character Education funds raised in the community.

School Assembly availability

The Power Team is available to perform school assemblies Wednesday, March 21, through Friday, March 23.

Many Power Team supporters have thanked me for improving their publicity beyond their wildest dreams. I think they hoped this would make me mad. It doesn't. From the start, I have welcomed more public debate of this issue. I am sure the Power Team's full religious version of their school assembly would be welcome at many private religious schools in our area.

Family Focused Program

Separate from the school assemblies, The Power Team will also be conducting a non-denominational program the Fort Atkinson High School Wednesday , March 21, through Sunday, March 25, at 7:00 p.m. Saturday, March 24, will be a 1:00 p.m. matinee only.

At the moment this was written, no other schools in our area - public or private - have announced Power Team assemblies.


Check us at
http://thepowerteam.com/schools.html