Live-Blogging the MSNBC "Mind Over Mania" Documentary

As many of you know, MSNBC is airing a 1 hour documentary about Teen Mania Ministries called "Mind Over Mania" this evening (November 6, 2011) at 10:00 PM Eastern Time. I'll be watching this with many of you as it airs, and have decided to live-blog my initial thoughts and reactions.

Before it even gets started, here is what I'm expecting:

• Numerous former Honor Academy interns recounting personal stories of abuse, neglect, and general mistreatment.
• Internationally-renowned experts stating that Teen Mania is absolutely a cult or a high-control group that should be avoided.
• "Celebrities" from the ultra-conservative Christian movement stating that Teen Mania is a fabulous group to be involved with.
• Teen Mania leadership admitting there "may" have been problems in the past, but that was years ago and they are "fixed" now.
• Suggestions by Teen Mania that former interns who are now speaking out have some sort of a grudge or vendetta against them.
• No definite conclusion either way, since MSNBC doesn't want to get sued.

We'll see what happens! Start refreshing this post at 10:00PM Eastern Time for the latest. Also, be sure you are following @TeenManiaWatch on Twitter.

________________________________________________

10:00 PM - The "Mind Over Mania" special on MSNBC is starting. Showing the same trailer that was posted on the MSNBC website earlier this week.

10:01 PM - A young woman named Raven is telling her story about how she got involved with Teen Mania. Seems similar to my own story....talks about having mystical experiences at live Teen Mania events.

10:02 PM - Dave Hasz gives a brief description of the Honor Academy and then ESOAL footage is shown.

10:03 PM - Former intern Raven recounts her experience of her mother visiting her 10 months after joining the Honor Academy and realizing that something was seriously wrong.

10:04 PM - Dave Hasz compares the Honor Academy LTEs ("Life Transforming Events") with "real life." Footage is then shown of Dave Hasz verbally tormenting an intern to the point of tears.

10:05 PM - Raven is describing symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of her Honor Academy experience. A licensed-counselor talks about how experiences like Raven's can lead to severe anxiety disorders.

10:07 PM - Raven will be attending a weekend-long retreat to discuss her Teen Mania experience.

10:10 PM - The show is back from commercial break. Raven arrives in Texas, and Mica is introduced, the Recovering Alumni blogger. Mica talks about her journey after Teen Mania and her need to work through the experience in therapy...sounds a lot like mine.

10:12 PM - Battle Cry footage is being shown and Ron Luce is screaming like CRAZY! If "whoever speaks up loudest shapes the culture" like Ron Luce says, Teen Mania better watch out!

10:13 PM - Ron Luce and current interns are talking about how Acquire the Fire brings teens to God--aka "the party line." All of this footage has been seen on the GodTV network and the "ATFtv" television show which airs on networks around the country.

10:14 PM - Raven described live Teen Mania events as "fake" and "planned." She says the events lost their sense of honesty once she became an Honor Academy intern. Teen Mania's annual income in 2010 was revealed to be over $18 million.

10:16 PM - Wendy & Doug Duncan, internationally-renowned cult experts are introduced, and 5 former Honor Academy interns agree to participate in a discussion about their experiences with mind-control.

10:17 PM - One intern talks about how the Honor Academy was pitched as a way to find out God's calling for her life. Unfortunately, this is how it is pitched to everyone. How can Teen Mania telemarketers know God's plans?

10:18 PM - Mica brings up the fact that interns are frequently mislead as to what to expect at the Teen Mania Honor Academy.

10:21 PM - More verbal abuse of teens by Teen Mania leadership. Dave Hasz explains the ESOAL acronym, and Raven calls ESOAL the "beginning of the end" in her experience. Another intern recounts physical and verbal abuse at the hands of Teen Mania leaders, including Dave Hasz.

10:22 PM - According to Raven, Dave Hasz said "Stop shivering. You sound disgusting." REALLY?!? What an awful thing to say to someone.

10:23 PM - Teens are shown rolling down a hill covered with other people's vomit. Life transforming indeed. Ron says ESOAL brings about "eternal change" in the lives of participants.

10:24 PM - A former intern talks about how Heath Stoner, the director of the Teen Mania Honor Academy, told her to ignore a physical ailment and do ESOAL and "trust God to heal her." Numerous interns discuss the pressure not to ring out of ESOAL.

10:25 PM - Ron Luce shows Teen Mania's MASSIVE telemarketing operation. Without a steady flow of interns to work the phones, Teen Mania would go bankrupt. Numerous interns express the heavy pressure they felt to meet quotas on the phone...without any consideration for who God may or may not be calling to participate in Teen Mania.

10:27 PM - Interns talk about paying Teen Mania for the privilege of working 10 hour days. Interns had to ask permission to use the bathroom at work. One intern says that Teen Mania kept the office at 85 degrees, but when potential interns visited, the air conditioning would be turned on. The former intern says the organization essentially lies to potential recruits during Honor Academy Preview Weekends.

10:32 PM - Back from another commercial...Teen Mania staffers gush about how wonderful the organization is.

10:33 PM - Ron Luce is giving his typical spiel about rejecting "pop culture."

10:34 PM - Doug Duncan starts to talk to former Teen Mania interns about the Lifton criteria for thought reform. Former interns immediately recognize "milieu control" as part of their Honor Academy experience.

10:35 PM - "Mystical manipulation" is also identified by former interns as being practiced by Ron Luce and Dave Hasz.

10:36 PM - Teen Mania interns describe the demand for absolute "purity" and the continual pressure to be fasting--both from food and other activities. This is recognized in many cults and high control groups.

10:37 PM - Former Honor Academy interns discuss the demand for confession to other interns and leadership, which often resulted in intense guilt and condemnation.

10:42 PM - Honor Academy participants discuss the "Cross Walk," an event that has been discontinued by Teen Mania. Seems horribly unsafe and scary. It was essentially replaced by ESOAL. Now ESOAL has been discontinued. Should we really believe PEARL is different?

10:43 PM - Recent Teen Mania interns discuss other "life transforming events," which are equally disturbing and abusive. This "Unreached People Group LTE" sounds like the farthest thing from reality that you could get.

10:45 PM - Wendy and Doug Duncan unwaveringly state that Teen Mania is abusive and that events like the ones just described should never have happened.

10:46 PM - Ron Luce states that people who got hurt because they didn't want an "in-your-face challenge." Ron says that the Honor Academy is not for everyone, even though telemarketers are told to tell potential recruits that everyone IS called to Teen Mania.

10:47 PM - Former interns talk about how Teen Mania "loads the language," another classic sign of a cult.

10:48 PM - Former interns discuss how normal human emotion is painted as "worldly," and how the Honor Academy essentially robs participants of their humanity. Wendy discusses how dissent was handled and punished by Teen Mania leadership.

10:49 PM - Raven described Teen Mania's actions towards her as "soul murder."

10:50 PM - Raven discusses her life after the Honor Academy, and how she wasn't the same person when she got home and felt like she lost her individuality.

10:53 PM - The Duncans discuss how participants of thought-reform groups end up with anxiety, depression, and even being suicidal. Mica and other interns identify strongly with a list of symptoms commonly experienced by former cult members.

10:54 PM - One former intern talks about how she avoids even thinking about Teen Mania. That's something I've definitely experienced in my own life.

10:55 PM - Doug Duncan talks about how Teen Mania meets all 8 of Lifton's criteria for thought-reform. Whether you want to call them a cult or not, Teen Mania brainwashes teens.

10:56 PM - Ron Luce states again that the Honor Academy is not for everyone, a stark contrast from what Teen Mania marketing materials state.

10:57 PM - The Duncans begin to talk to the former Teen Mania interns about how to start to move-on from their hurtful experiences at the Honor Academy.

10:58 PM - Former interns talk about intense loneliness and isolation after the Honor Academy.

10:59 PM - Mica discusses her general thoughts about her weekend with the Duncans. The other interns who participated said the experience was freeing and healing. It is revealed that Ron Luce declined a follow-up interview for the program.

______________________________________________

Wow! That went by quick! I feel like they could have spent another whole hour talking about Teen Mania--MSNBC really did just scratch the surface. Overall, though, I am extremely pleased with how the show turned out, and I am hopeful that "Mind Over Mania" will be viewed by many parents and teens. I need to watch the documentary again and put together some more coherent thoughts to post here.

In the mean time, if you enjoyed tonight's program, use this feedback form to tell MSNBC "thank you" for doing such an awesome job reporting the truth about Teen Mania...and be sure to let them know if you would like to see more programs like "Mind Over Mania."

Bad Dreams About Teen Mania

Here's a post from the heart.

I've been doing a lot of reflecting lately...on my life, where I've been, where I'm at now...things that normal almost-30-year-olds tend to think about.

I think about my relationship with God, and the church--and I just keep coming back to Teen Mania. So much of the way I see the world, faith, God, and even myself was instilled in me through my involvement with Teen Mania Ministries.

Because of all my reflecting, I've been having dreams about my experience in Venezuela on a short-term Teen Mania missions trip. The dreams aren't exactly "nightmares," but they certainly aren't pleasant. They usually involve me being "trapped" somehow in a foreign country and trying desperately to get home, but ultimately being unable too. I often wake up feeling extremely "shaken" from these dreams, and I certainly don't sleep well on the nights when I have these dreams. As many of my readers know, I am a participant in the Recovering Alumni forums, and many folks there who have been involved with Teen Mania are still having bad dreams about their experiences years (and even decades) after their participation in the group.

I was never an Honor Academy intern, so my direct involvement with Teen Mania only consisted of a handful of Acquire the Fire conferences and a month-long Global Expedition. I would imagine that bad dreams tend to plague Honor Academy participants, some of whom spent years of their life at Teen Mania, even more than they bother me.

From a purely "common sense" perspective, it would seem to me that if you have a ministry running multiple programs that many participants are having nightmares about years later, that should serve as a major warning sign of serious problems.

But I'd also like to point out the second diagnostic criterion for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder:

One or more of these must be present in the victim: flashback memories, recurring distressing dreams, subjective re-experiencing of the traumatic event(s), or intense negative psychological or physiological response to any objective or subjective reminder of the traumatic event(s).

This isn't sensationalism. I know of at least a few people who have received confirmed diagnoses of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) because of their experiences with Teen Mania Ministries.

If I were a parent, I would never let my child attend an event (or year-long program) where there was a potential for him or her to walk away with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder! As a former Teen Mania participant, it bothers me that my experience with the group continues to haunt me to this day, and it makes me want to shout from the rooftops that "Teen Mania is dangerous for teens!"--and to encourage others to join me. Safe programs with solid reputations don't tend to inflict psychological trauma on those who attend. Cults and high-control groups do, though!

For now, the bad dreams continue. But hopefully not tonight. Sleep well everyone!

Surprise! Your Teen Mania Mission Trip Will Cost Hundreds of Dollars More Than Advertised!

Teen Mania Ministries recently revamped their Global Expedition website, adding snazzy marketing materials downloads for teenagers, including this Missionary Step-by-Step Guide. In this guide, you'll find a chart on page 3 (see above) listing all the expenses that aren't covered in the advertised price of your Global Expedition.

Teen Mania recruits teens for their mission trips at Acquire the Fire events all over the country, so most teens who aren't from Texas will need to shell out at least a couple hundred dollars for a flight to the Dallas/Fort Worth airport. Of course, Teen Mania won't be picking you up from the airport for free, either....you'll need to pay them another $49 for that privilege. Oh, and if your mission trip involves you taking an international flight, Teen Mania might add "up to $350" to the cost of your trip--but you won't find out exactly how much until you've already given them half of the money due. If that extra $350 makes the total cost of your trip unaffordable, well, it sucks to be you....because the money you've already paid to Teen Mania is not refundable under any circumstances.

If you are kind enough to volunteer as an unpaid leader on a Global Expedition (without which the trips would not be possible), not only do you need to pay for your trip, you'll need to shell out $25 for a background check ($75 if you're late!) and an extra $89 for a leadership training session. Doesn't sound like many other "volunteer positions" I know of....

As I explored in the last post, Teen Mania missions trips are already grossly overpriced & represent a lot of "profit" for the ministry. Most other organizations offer mission trips for much less money. But as you can see from the fee chart above, most teens end up paying hundreds of dollars more for their trip than the prices Teen Mania prints in all of their slick-looking missions brochures.

The fact of the matter is, this "nickel-and-diming" is not a common practice for most organizations that take people on mission trips--especially local churches. When you go on a trip with a church in your town, there's no domestic airfare to pay for, no airport shuttle to deal with, and the advertised cost of the trip is almost always "all-inclusive." They won't be charging for leadership training, and you'll know about any "fuel surcharges" when you sign up for the trip.

One last thought: if Teen Mania Ministries actually included all of the fees associated with their mission trips in the base price they advertised, they know interest in their trips would drop dramatically, and they wouldn't be able to recruit as many teens. Maybe that's why the extra fees are buried in the back of a brochure most teens & parents won't see until after they've already paid to apply to go on a Global Expedition??

Why Does a Teen Mania Global Expedition to Panama Cost So Much?

As I Tweeted the other night, I was looking at the Teen Mania mission trips available over the holidays, and I couldn't believe how much an 8 day trip to Panama cost: almost $1900 dollars!

I price hotels and flights fairly regularly....and I've been on a Teen Mania Global Expedition so I am somewhat familiar with what to expect in terms of food and accommodations. Just by looking at the price of the trip, I knew there was no way that TMM's actual expenses were anywhere close to what they were charging. But, in the interest of educating others, I decided to sit down and do the math--so everyone can see just how much profit Teen Mania is making off the backs of teens who decide to go on a Global Expedition.

Actual Expenses:

Round Trip Flight to Panama: $665

Food: $15/day x 8 days = $120

Lodging: $12.50/person/day x 8 days = $100

Ground Transportation: $100/person

Ministry Materials/Supplies/Misc = $75/person

Leadership Subsidies - $75/person

_______________________________

TOTAL: $1135

COST OF TRIP THROUGH TEEN MANIA: $1874

DIFFERENCE (aka "profit margin"): $739 (39.4% of the trip price)

Now, since I'm sure there will be arguments about how I arrived at these figures, let me take a moment to explain.

Round Trip Flight to Panama: This is probably the biggest trip expense that Teen Mania has the least amount of control over. I looked up round-trip flights from Miami (where the trip starts) to Panama City for the trip dates on Expedia.com. I assumed that Teen Mania would pick the cheapest flight.

Food: As anyone who has ever been on a Global Expedition knows, the food on Teen Mania missions trips isn't the best. A lot of times, teens are served nothing but peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch or dinner. Local churches in host countries also often feed the teenage missionaries at no expense to Teen Mania. Restaurant meals are rare on Teen Mania missions trips. I alloted $15/day/person for food, although the actual expense to Teen Mania could be much lower depending on their reliance on local churches and/or PB&J.

Lodging: One of the better hotels I could find in Panama City was $50/night, and this is the price I used in my calculations. Many hotels in Panama City were only $20 or $30 per night, so Teen Mania could definitely find cheaper accommodations than the ones I used in my math. I also assumed that teens would only have to sleep 4 to a hotel room, although I know it is a regular occurrence for TMM to try to squeeze 6 or more people into a hotel room on missions trips. This also assumes Teen Mania even springs for a hotel room--on many trips, teens simply sleep on the floor of a local church (or even prison!) at zero expense to Teen Mania Ministries.

Ground Transportation: I allotted $100 for buses/vans to transport teens to ministry sites while in Panama, although this seems a bit high to me for a Central American country. I believe this figure represents the most Teen Mania could possibly spend transporting teen missionaries in Panama. I know that a lot of time local churches donate the use of their vehicles to TMM, so their actual ground transportation expenses per missionary could be much less.

Ministry Materials/Supplies/Misc.: In my experience, Teen Mania doesn't spend a whole lot of money on ministry supplies. On my missions trip, the only thing they "gave" us that would fall into this category was the costume for our drama--which we didn't get to keep, was poorly made, and obviously worth less than $10. But, I decided to give TMM the benefit of the doubt, and I used this category to account for expenses that might not to fall into any other category.

Leadership Subsidies: Finally, the project directors, team leaders, etc., that help TMM on their Global Expedition trips receive a discount on the cost of their trip. The discount isn't very much, and the leaders definitely still give Teen Mania money to go on the missions trip. But, in the interest of fairness, I allotted $75 per full price participant to help offset the cost to Teen Mania of providing this leadership discount.

I think this is definitely a very fair assessment of the actual cost to Teen Mania to send a teen to Panama for 8 days given the typical TMM level of accommodations. As you can see, Teen Mania Ministries stands to make a lot of money by recruiting the maximum number of participants for this missions trip. If they get just 100 teens to go on the trip, and make $739 on each one, that's almost $74,000 extra they have in the bank. That's not exactly chump change.

In fact, it's no secret that Teen Mania has built in a "profit margin" to their summer & holiday missions trips, and this extra money is what enables them to take a loss on expensive stadium events and the Honor Academy. Teen Mania leadership freely admits that this margin is what covers the "overhead" of the massive ministry.

So, when your kid asks you if he/she can go on a Teen Mania missions trip, keep in mind that you're not just paying for their travel expenses--you're also paying for a huge campus in Texas, flashy pyrotechnics at Acquire the Fire events, and extravagant salaries for Ron Luce, Dave Hasz, and other key Teen Mania employees. The fact of the matter is, just about any other organization that takes people on missions trips is going to charge less than Teen Mania. A quick Google search revealed that I could actually take a month long missions trip to Panama for $500 less than Teen Mania is charging to go for eight days. Plus, you can avoid dealing with an organization that many have labelled a "cult" and that is currently dealing with serious accusations of physical and spiritual abuse.

Short-term missions trips can definitely be a positive learning experience for Christian teens. But make the smart decision--skip the overpriced Teen Mania Global Expedition and find a more affordable trip with a local church or ministry.

Teen Mania & David Hasz Are NOT Being 'Persecuted'

I've been following the comments on the recent KLTV news reports on ESOAL, as well as on David Hasz' Facebook page. One recurring theme I keep seeing over & over from pro-TMM commenters is that all the recent media attention Teen Mania Ministries has been getting is somehow "religious persecution." People talking about how David Hasz will get through this "persecution" just like God helped the Apostle Paul when he was persecuted.

Wikipedia defines religious persecution as "the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group of individuals as a response to their religious beliefs or affiliations."

Let's be clear. Teen Mania Ministries isn't being bashed because they are a Christian organization--it's because they run extremely dangerous & irresponsible events like ESOAL. David Hasz isn't coming under fire because he talks about Jesus--it's because he has repeatedly and unapologetically lied about numerous Honor Academy programs, only the latest of which is ESOAL. Dave would love to be able to spin all this negative publicity into people seeing him as a huge martyr, but the fact of the matter is that nothing is currently happening to Dave Hasz that he didn't bring on himself with his decision to be dishonest.

Unless the Teen Mania cheerleaders think Jesus was somehow "persecuting" the pharisees when he called them out on their nonsense in public, they ought to re-think their position on what's really going on with all this recent Teen Mania controversy.

Picture of the Week: Dave Hasz & His Friskies

In an email Wednesday from Teen Mania to KLTV, ESOAL creator Dave Hasz says corrections have been made saying "most never throw up on the hill." For the first time, restrictions are in place for interns participating in the "hill roll." Starting this year, they are only allowed three rolls. Hasz's email also stated "cat food has never been served at ESOAL." -KLTV News Story (Do ESOAL activities go too far?) posted September 23, 2010

Why Did Teen Mania & Mark Lewandowski Lie?

Over the past couple of days, some very interesting things have been happening over on the Recovering Alumni blog. On Monday, a recording of a phone call between Mark Lewandowski and the author of the Recovering Alumni blog was released. Mark Lewandowski is the Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors for Teen Mania Ministries, and he was the man appointed by Teen Mania to reach out to the Recovering Alumni community and solicit stories for the board of directors to read.

The phone call was recorded about a month before Teen Mania launched their RecoveringAlumniResponse.com website. The RA blogger asked Mark several specific questions about how the Board of Directors' investigation would go, and Mark was pretty forthcoming with his communication. Let's go point-by-point and look at what Mark Lewandowski said compared with what actually happened:

Mark Lewandowski said: "...the decision is that we didn’t get into this situation overnight so we’re not going to try to rush to get out of this situation."

What actually happened: Teen Mania threw together a shoddy website, riddled with spelling and grammatical errors, and posted it on the internet late on a Friday afternoon just before Memorial Day weekend. It looks like they didn't look any farther than Dave Hasz' Rolodex to find "experts" for their review panel, and after a single conference call with hundreds of hurting alumni, they were ready to declare the entire situation over and done with.

Mark Lewandowski said: "So I feel very confident that there is going to be real, detailed discovery and that is much better than a cursory, 'Hey we looked into this and everything is going great, we’ve taken care of it, have a good day.'"

What actually happened: Teen Mania Ministries created a website and held a conference call that basically said "All these problems happened in the past, everything's going great now." The leaders at Teen Mania Ministries offered no specific details about what problems they discovered, what steps they were taking to address those problems, or how they were going to change things to prevent those problems going forward. I don't see any evidence whatsoever that the Teen Mania Board of Directors made any attempt at a "real, detailed discovery."

Mark Lewandowski said: "Yeah, we’ve been wanting to use for sure a clinical counselor or clinical psychologist; someone from fitness like a medical professional …people with deep, solid theological experience…..a physician that will be able to speak to the fitness complaints….trying to find the right people to help us assess the situation from a clinical, counseling, physical, spiritual and not just use the Board and not just use inside experts from Teen Mania."

What actually happened: From the information that Teen Mania has posted, it looks like there are only two people that could possibly be considered "experts" that were involved in the investigation, and they both had deep ties to Teen Mania. I didn't see anyone "from fitness" commenting on the physical aspects of the program...I didn't see many actual comments on specific aspects of the program at all. Just a cheerleading session from a couple of people with a definite vested interest in making a potential scandal go away.

___________________________

There were other lies in the phone call, but you get the gist. So I guess the big question is the one posed in the headline of this post: Why did Teen Mania & Mark Lewandowski tell such bold-faced lies, and why in the world did they think they would get away with it? My guess is that Mark didn't count on having that conversation recorded and published for the entire world to hear.

Picture of the Week: Teen Mania's Soon-To-Be-Dead Cat

One of our readers had the chance to visit the Teen Mania Ministries campus in Garden Valley, Texas recently, and snapped this picture of a stray cat she saw walking around. Very pretty cat....cute collar and everything. :)

Unfortunately, if this cat sticks around too long, he/she will most likely be killed with a shotgun since, as Dave Hasz said on Teen Mania's recent conference call, that is how stray cats are dealt with on campus.

Former Honor Academy participants have also reported witnessing other interns drowning kittens and otherwise torturing stray animals that happen to have the misfortune of wandering onto the Teen Mania campus. These are mostly former pets, not feral animals, which makes the reports of animal abuse even more disturbing. No animal deserves to live the last moments of their life in sheer terror, but so far Teen Mania has refused to look into more compassionate solutions to their stray animal problem.

Conference Call Follow-Up

On June 28, 2010, Teen Mania Ministries held a conference call to publicly respond to the many questions raised by former program participants that had a horrible experience at the Honor Academy. The call lasted for more than two and a half hours, and a lot of serious issues were addressed by Dave Hasz, the director of Teen Mania's Honor Academy. Interested parties can find a downloadable recording of the call on the Recovering Alumni Response website.

We'll be looking at some of the specific content of the conference call in future posts. But my general reaction is that the call was a completely inadequate response to the abuse allegations that have been raised by Honor Academy participants, and was basically just a desperate P.R. stunt instead of a real attempt at honest dialog and lasting change.

If you do a Google search for "Teen Mania Ministries" or "Honor Academy," you'll notice that there are lots of links to negative information on the first few pages of search results. Information about Teen Mania's cult-like atmosphere. Stories of emotional, spiritual, and even physical abuse at the Honor Academy. Today's teens are internet-savvy--of course they are Googling these things before they make serious commitments to an organization they aren't familiar with. The word on the street is that this negative information is starting to seriously hurt recruiting efforts for the Honor Academy, and as everyone knows, Teen Mania can't do much without free labor.

So Teen Mania is in crisis mode....trying to make the stories on the internet go away....dismissing them as "things that happened in the past." But unfortunately for Ron Luce & company, the crisis isn't going away as more and more young adults start to step forward and talk about the hurt they experienced at Teen Mania Ministries.

Food & Sleep During Acquire The Fire Weekends

Let's face it: your body NEEDS sleep--and when you haven't had much sleep, your mind & body simply are not at their best. When you're tired, it is easy to feel like you can't concentrate, to act more emotional than you usually would, and to make rash decisions without clearly thinking things through. Your mental defenses are weakened when you haven't slept, and because of this, sleep deprivation is a commonly-used mind control technique employed by many modern-day cults & oppressive government regimes. I also believe that Teen Mania Ministries inappropriately uses teens' lack of sleep during an Acquire The Fire weekend to their advantage.

I went to several Acquire The Fire conventions during my teenage years, and I can tell you that they were some of the most physically & mentally exhausting weekends I have ever had. Because the events are held in large arenas is big cities, many rural teens have to drive very long distances to get to the event--it is not uncommon for church youth groups to drive to an Acquire The Fire that is several hours away. The Friday night session ends late and the Saturday morning session starts early, so most youth groups elect to have the kids spend the night together somewhere. Usually this means either on the floor of a church, or in over-crowded hotel rooms. Neither environment lends itself particularly well to getting much sleep, and when youth groups spend the night together, sleep is rarely on the minds of the teens (staying up all night goofing off is why "lock-ins" used to be so fun!). I remember getting just a couple of hours of sleep on Friday nights before needing to be back at the arena around 7:30am the next morning. Saturday's schedule is grueling, with long sessions scheduled until late at night with just a couple of short breaks. Then, when Acquire The Fire is over, teens must make the often long drive back to their homes before waking up early for church the next morning.

The food situation isn't much better. Friday night's Acquire The Fire session begins pretty much right at dinner time, and in order to reduce the cost of the weekend, most churches tell the teens to "eat dinner before they come." In my experience, this rarely actually happened and "dinner" usually consisted of a few slices of pizza ordered at midnight after the session was over and everyone was starving. For most ATF participants, Saturday's breakfast consists of a donut or a bagel eaten in a church van, and they are left to completely fend for themselves for lunch and dinner. Most teens don't have much spending money, and food in & around the arena is typically expensive, so lunch might be a slice of pizza and dinner might be an order of nachos. I know for a fact that several kids in my youth group had to skip one or both of these meals on Saturday because their parent's hadn't given them money....or they had already spent the money they were given on Acquire The Fire merchandise sold during the event. Because of the way the weekend is set up, many kids at Acquire The Fire end up feeling hungry for a large portion of the weekend and don't really get a decent meal until Sunday.

These sleep & food situations might be okay for a primarily recreational activity, like a music festival or a comic-book convention. But teens are being asked to make life-altering decisions at Acquire The Fire conventions--throw away all your secular music, commit to abstinence until marriage, give up dating altogether, become militantly pro-life, spend $3000 on a summer missions trip, give up a year (or more) of your life and raise $7400 (or more) for Teen Mania. These are all big decisions with lots of consequences, and it's not fair to "hard-sell" these ideas to kids when they are sleep-deprived and starving. But, teens get excited more easily and don't ask as many critical questions when they are tired & hungry, which makes it easier to pedal Teen Mania's political agenda & income-generating programs. I'd say that's one of the main reasons why Teen Mania Ministries pushes so hard to have kids fill out applications for Global Expeditions & the Honor Academy while they are at the arena and before they've had a chance to discuss it with their parents. Discriminating minds can often see through slick marketing tactics, so Teen Mania needs to do as much of their marketing as they can inside the arena while teens' mental defenses are at their lowest.

Gay or Lesbian at Teen Mania Ministries?

Are you an individual that is LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or questioning) and has been involved with Teen Mania Ministries? If so, I'd like to hear from you! I know there are a lot of LGBTQ kids out there who have had contact with Teen Mania at some point in their lives, and I am very interested in hearing your stories. All e-mail communications are private, and I would never publish any details of your story without your express permission. If you do want to share your story, I can help you do that completely anonymously through this blog....but again, only if you want and only with your express permission first.

I was a gay teenager who involved with Teen Mania Ministries, and was really hurt by them. Ten years later, I have been able to find some healing and acceptance in my life. But it was a long journey, and I know it's hard. So, if you've been to Acquire The Fire and heard confusing things about gay people...or if someone from Teen Mania said things about being a lesbian that hurt you...or if you just want to talk to someone else who might be able to understand your experience...shoot me a message. I'd love to talk to you. You can send a completely private e-mail to: teenmaniawatch at gmail dot com.

Teen Mania's Sustainability Problem

Free labor sounds like a great idea, and it often takes many years of dedicated service by volunteers before a non-profit organization can really grow large enough to start paying full-time staff members.  But when established non-profits like Teen Mania Ministries rely on free labor to run the majority of the organization, certain problems arise.  Usually, non-profit organizations have to report the salaries of administrative staff as "overhead expenses," and one of the things that most donors look for when giving to a charity is a low percentage of money being used for overhead, and the majority of funds being used for program expenses.

By relying on the free labor of interns to take care of the massive amount of administrative work that goes into running Teen Mania, the ministry is able to report very low overhead expenses which helps them raise more money, especially from larger donors.  The problem is one of sustainability...or lack thereof.  Donors expect organizations to get "bigger and better" each year, but they also don't like to see overhead expenses go up very much as a percentage of total revenue.  Teen Mania has indeed exploded in size through the years, putting on more expensive events and building more expensive facilities than ever before.  This means having to recruit more & more teens each year to join the Honor Academy and work for free to build the ever expanding Teen Mania empire.

Now, there is no problem with non-profit organizations needing to recruit volunteers to help with day-to-day operations.  The problem comes in when the "volunteer opportunity" is presented in a high-pressure setting, to vulnerable young people, and used as a measure of a person's level of spiritual commitment.  The vast majority of Teen Mania Honor Academy participants are recruited at a live event like Acquire the Fire or BattleCry. These events can be extremely emotionally charged and intensely spiritual...many teens have reported having their first real "crisis of faith" at Acquire the Fire conventions.  Enter Ron Luce, telling these emotional teens that they can find real purpose and meaning for their lives by coming to work for Teen Mania for a year.  That they will become Christian warriors and future great leaders by joining the Honor Academy.  That signing up is the ultimate commitment to God that a person can make during their teenage years.  They're encouraged to pray about it, to consider it, and (of course) if they have any inkling at all that they might want to join the Honor Academy, to talk to a Teen Mania staff member (usually a current intern).

The truth is, the Honor Academy isn't a great place for every teenager, and sometimes God has other plans for someone's life.  Though, you definitely wouldn't know that by talking to a Teen Mania staff member or reading the Honor Academy marketing materials.  Teen Mania has to recruit a certain number of teens each year just to be able to make ends meet and fulfill all their vast commitments. Huge events are planned years in advance, and not having enough staff to produce them when the time comes is simply not an option--there's too much money at stake.  This creates a high-pressure recruiting environment where the needs of the organization are placed above the needs & well-being of individual teenagers.  The Teen Mania recruiting staff have quotas to fill, and need to get a certain number of teens to fill out Honor Academy applications at every single event.  Slick videos and brochures present a very one-sided view of the Honor Academy, and the pressure to "just fill out an application and make a decision later" is very high at Acquire the Fire & BattleCry events.  Teen Mania knows that if they can get someone to fill out an application, they can keep marketing the program to them after the event, and a certain percentage will eventually sign-on...it's a "numbers game."  Ultimately this is how Teen Mania Ministries meets its recruiting quotas.

Unfortunately, a lot of teens get caught in the crosshairs of this numbers game.  Teens end up feeling guilty, or like they are not good Christians, because they do not want to participate in the Honor Academy.  Other teens end up abandoning long-held, well-laid plans to attend college or start a career because of a promise that the Honor Academy will make them closer to God or help them "find their purpose."  Some teens' families go into serious amounts of debt to keep their children in the Honor Academy when donor money dries up or when the ministry convinces the intern to stay for a second (or third...or fourth) year.  If a teenager starts the Honor Academy and decides it isn't for them and wants to leave, they are made to feel like they are breaking their word and letting God down.

Teen Mania has grown so large that, in order to maintain the size of the ministry, these are the "necessary evils" of recruiting and retaining a workforce.  Teen Mania can't substantially increase their number of paid staff members without raising overhead expenses and alienating donors.  They can't afford to lose any donors because the events they produce are so expensive.  Free labor is the gasoline that keeps the Teen Mania machine running, but unfortunately, ensuring that the Honor Academy is a positive experience for an ever-increasing number of teens is an unsustainable prospect.  This is becoming increasingly apparent as more information about the Honor Academy becomes public, which we will explore in future posts.

Teen Mania Financial Highlights

When trying to figure out the inner-workings of any organization, it is helpful to take a look at the company's financial statements. Non-profit organizations like Teen Mania Ministries are required to file an IRS Form 990 (highlighting key financial information) with the federal government each year, and these IRS forms are a matter of public record. The most recent Teen Mania IRS Form 990 was filed for the 2007 tax year, and is available for viewing by clicking here. Here are some of the highlights of the most recent Teen Mania financial statement:

2007 Teen Mania Revenue & Asset Highlights

• Made up mostly of private donations and program fees, Teen Mania Ministries had total revenues of $20,167,167 for the 2007 Tax Year.
• TMM brought in approximately $6.5 million by selling tickets to Acquire the Fire, BattleCry, Extreme Camps, and leadership seminars.
• The organization made another $1.6 million selling merchandise (primarily to teenagers) at these events.
• Teen Mania also has a financial stake in the Creation Music Festivals (held annually in Pennsylvania and Washington) currently valued at $1.9 million.
• At the beginning of 2007, Teen Mania had net assets worth $11.1 million, but by the end of the year they were $2 million in the hole (largely because ticket revenues did not cover the cost of producing 34 live stadium events).

2007 Teen Mania Expense Highlights

• Ron Luce and his wife Katie were paid a combined total of $188,745 in 2007 (including retirement plan contributions).
• Teen Mania Ministries spent almost $1 million on advertising for the year.
• TMM spent approximately $6.9 million to take 3,111 people on missions trips, at an average cost of $2,212.88 per participant.
• $9.4 million was spent to produce live events attended by 142,741 people, at an average cost of $65.76 per participant.
• Teen Mania spent $950,584 to pay the interest due on approximately $10.8 million worth of debt.

(NOTE: There are many more details about Teen Mania's finances which I didn't include here for the sake of brevity, but which are included in the actual IRS form linked to above.)

As you can see, these aren't exactly small numbers...Teen Mania Ministries is a massive, multi-million dollar organization that operates like a big business. We'll be looking at some of these facts & figures in more detail in future posts, but for the time being, here are some important questions that any potential donor to Teen Mania should consider before opening their checkbook:

• Is it appropriate for Ron & Katie Luce to be making over 3 times the median U.S. household income of $50,233?
• Why does Teen Mania spend over $2,200 to send a teen missionary overseas, when other Christian organizations can send someone on a similar trip for less than half that amount?
• Should an organization supported largely by teenagers and their families be taking on so much debt that they have to pay almost $1 million per year in interest?
• Is is appropriate for a Christian ministry to spend $1 million each year on advertising?
• Could the massive amount of money being funneled through Teen Mania each year be spent more effectively to help reach people with the gospel?

What do you think about Teen Mania's finances? Where are they being wise, and where could they be better stewards of their donors' money? Leave a comment with your thoughts.