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Power Team assemblies cancelled in SE WI

jfoust

New Blood
J
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Feb 13, 2007
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I recently filed a complaint with five school districts in Jefferson County, Wisconsin. They had planned to hold assemblies for a presentation by the Power Team, a group of Christian ministers who are also bodybuilders who perform feats of strength.

Their primary mission (as stated on their web site) is boosting attendance at the churches who hire them, through a series of evening revival meetings. Their secondary mission is holding circus-like assemblies in schools, preaching a message of character education while smashing cement blocks, ripping phone books, etc.

Depending on the level of concern from school administrators, they'll vary the amount of religious content. I think many public schools have allowed a fully religious presentation. Even when they claim to tone it down, I think I showed that they have many other ways to promote the tent shows to the captive students.

Ultimately the superintendents cancelled the assemblies in order to eliminate the notion that "the schools were connected with the promotion of a crusade."

There's a thread in the JREF archives from 2005 titled "Radical Reality School Assembly Help!" regarding a similar call for help to cancel a Power Team assembly.

I describe my quest on my web site at goJefferson dot com.
 
Good work, jfoust.

I was the one who ran that thread back in 2005.

I was able to get some parents to take up the cause and get the Radical Reality assembly cancelled at my school. I fear RR still ran their show at other schools in the district.

Stopping these stealth proselytizers requires vigilance in the treanches. Administrators see them as "anti-drug/stay in school" programs and are generally eager to schedule them. But they're really ads for religious programs that have no place in public schools.
 
From the Power Team website:
The Power Team crusade is extremely cost effective. In a recent church survey, it was noted that the average church spends $15,000 per new convert and takes 75 church members to win only one person to Christ.
Click to expand...
Not too hard to appear as a model of efficiency with numbers like that.
 
Good for you. Not only did you prevent your local school from endorsing religion and paying for it with tax dollars, you got a bunch of kids out of an assembly. Win-win-win.

*Roswell-Perseis applauds (with envy) the amazing forumite and assembly-free children*
 
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Oh, yeah, great job. And just who will protect those poor children from Rita Repulsa now? :rolleyes:

Oh, Team...carry on.
 
Good move, jfoust. I haven't seen that group show up in this part of Wisconsin (NE) yet, but I'll keep an eye out.

Freedom from religion is just as important as freedom of religion.
 
Well, I wouldn't take the Power Team's marketing hype as Gospel. On one of my pages, I question their recent claim that they've performed in "25,000 schools." Applied evenly over their 25-year history, that's 5 1/2 performances a day.

I found a news story from April 2000 where the Power Team claims "more than 7,000 public school assemblies" so far. To meet their recent claim, they'd need to carry out 7 1/2 assemblies per day, 365 days a year - twice that (14), if you consider that public schools are open roughly 180 days a year. But they are like Santa in some ways, as there are several travelling Power Teams. Their MySpace promotional page only lists seven crusades scheduled for February, though, and the possibility of three Teams.

As for funding, it varied in the five districts. The church coordinated a great deal. Their representative, a well-liked retired teacher, went to each of the districts to propose the assembly. In one district, their members raised the money to pay the $500 fee per school. In other cases, the schools offered to pay. In my district, they used money from a fund of donations raised for Character Education. In another, they used a mix of district money and State grant money aimed at drug and alcohol education.

I wondered out loud about the steroids, too. Is it possible to get that big on exercise and diet alone?
 
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This is interesting to me as I read an article about the canceling of these events in the Watertown newspaper. I didn't understand from the article why they were canceled.

The article indicated they were pastors or church associated, but only said their act featured feats of strength and things of this nature.

From the article it didn't make any sense why the acts were canceled.

So, good job and thanks for explaining the situation.
 
I was drug to one of their shows(or something similar. There can't be too many acts like this). They didn't mention it was a christer thing until a few minutes in. This was one of the first times I realized that preaching and magic are closely related.

"By the power of Jesus! I can tear a phone book in half!"
"Jesus gives me the strength to bend horseshoes!"
"My faith in god let's me saw a woman in half!"

I don't know why it bothers me. A magician that learns the sacred art from a shaman living in India that has guarded the secret for 10,000 years isn't much different from saying it comes from god. I guess it is because people believe the god bit is true. Much like how watching Derron Brown read minds is entertaining, but watching some psychic do it is revolting.
 
Fronzel said:
"By the power of Jesus! I can tear a phone book in half!"
"Jesus gives me the strength to bend horseshoes!"
"My faith in god let's me saw a woman in half!"
Click to expand...

People should consider taking along pictures of top Muslim weightlifters like Reza Zadeh from Iran and ask the Power Team where he gets his strength from? :p
 
The Arabian Knights!

The Rocknetroots blog in nearby Rock County has a piece titled "Church and State: Depends on which Church". They rewrote the Power Team's PR as if they were an Islamic ministry. It's fabulous.

If only I had 15 posts, then I'd post a link. :-) It's at rocknetroots .blogspot .com .
 
Ames Tribune: "Schools should 'just say no' to the Power Team"

The Tribune newspaper in Ames, Iowa recently posted an editorial, wondering post-facto why the Power Team was allowed to present their program in the public schools including an invitation to the evening revival meetings. Google for "Schools should 'just say no' to the Power Team" to see it.
 
Another school outside Houston had planned a Power Team performance, but cancelled last week after I sent them a letter pointing out the need for them to research this group a bit more. A district spokesperson said it was because the principal decided "it was not appropriate for a school setting."

The Houston Chronicle's article on this is titled "Motivational group facing backlash over its religious ties". (There are a number of comments to the article online; however I noticed that Internet Explorer had trouble seeing them and I had to try a different browser.)
 
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