Scientology Expanding

- The Church’s property holdings internationally have more than doubled in the last 5 years. The combined size of Church premises increased from 5.6 million square feet in 2004 to 11 million square feet in 2009.

- The Church has acquired 66 buildings since 2004 in major population centers around the world.

- The Church has completed 401,003 square feet of construction of new premises in the last 5 months. It currently has under construction another 475,887 square feet, including Churches in Washington D.C., Las Vegas, Quebec, Mexico City, Brussels, Rome and Tel Aviv.

- There are 8,071 Scientology Churches, Missions and groups in 165 nations, double the number five years ago.

- 80 million L. Ron Hubbard books and lectures on Dianetics and Scientology have been sold in the last decade, compared to 5.6 million in the prior decade, and 60 of that 80 million have been sold in the last two years-more than during the first 50 years of Dianetics and Scientology combined.

- The number of individuals completing auditing and training has doubled since 2007.

- Since the Church undertook to publish and reproduce its scriptural materials in-house in 2007, the average price of Mr. Hubbard’s books and lectures sold has decreased dramatically.

- There were 12.4 million visitors to the Scientology website in the last year alone coming from 234 countries, with 23 million video views.

- 4.5 million pages of L. Ron Hubbard’s writings have been translated in the last 10 years alone compared to a total of 359,459 for the prior 50 years, making him the most translated author in history-according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

- Today there are 196,000 Scientology Volunteer Ministers worldwide-there were 45,000 in 2004. Volunteer Ministers helped over 1.4 million people in the last year alone, a 300% increase over the 2004 figure of 550,000 people helped.

(Taken from ScientologyToday.org)

The Era of the New Breed of Ideal Scientology Churches

On March 17th and 18th, over ten thousand Scientologists gathered to hear the latest news about a new breed of Scientology church, at the L. Ron Hubbard Birthday celebrations in Clearwater, Florida and Los Angeles, California. And many thousands more will attend this event in cities around the world over the coming weeks. In October, thousands of Scientologists filled Queen Victoria Street for the grand opening of the Church of Scientology of London in the heart of the English-speaking world. Just three months later over five thousand Scientologists from across Europe converged in the Charlottenburg district of Berlin when the spectacular new Church of Scientology of Berlin opened its doors. But as those attending this weekend's event learned, the expansion represented by these new churches is only a glimpse of what is in store over the coming months. These churches have become known as "Ideal Scientology churches," because of their greatly expanded capability to provide Scientology spiritual training and counseling to their members and to help the community with their acclaimed community outreach and social betterment activities. And with so many today asking, "What IS Scientology?" these churches are fully oriented to answering this question through public information exhibits. The Church of Scientology of Berlin is a case in point. Two entire stories of the magnificently restored 47,000 square foot building have been set aside for this purpose. Dozens of audio visual presentations and displays showing on 15 plasma screens are dedicated to answering virtually any question anyone could ask about L. Ron Hubbard and the Scientology religion and its activities. There are three public film rooms, multiple seminar and lecture rooms and course rooms that can deliver Life Improvement courses to hundreds of people at a time. Two entire stories of the new Church of Scientology of Berlin are public information exhibits to answer people's questions about Scientology. But even more to the point, the Berlin church and each of the new ideal Scientology churches under renovation or currently being planned, offer a full array of programs to help their communities. In fact, service to the community is the cornerstone of these new Scientology churches, which are the generation point of activities aimed at restoring human rights, eradicating the illiteracy, drug abuse, crime and immorality which blight our cities and providing the one-on-one help that have made the bright yellow shirts of our Scientology Volunteer Ministers a symbol of help in cities and towns around the world. And by selecting historical buildings and bringing them up to the most modern and aesthetic standards, the very renovation of these new Scientology churches is a service to the community. In Los Angeles last month the Los Angeles Business Journal recognized the Church of Scientology International as a leader in the field of "adaptive reuse" — an efficient and environmentally responsible trend in architecture in which old or historic buildings are converted for new uses while retaining their classic features. The complete restoration and renovation of the Main Street headquarters of the Church of Scientology of Buffalo, the former Buffalo Public Library, was described as "a work of love" by the Buffalo Business Journal, which heralded the Church's decision to bring new life to the historic landmark as an inspiration to other groups and organizations toward a dramatic rebirth of the downtown area of the city. The mayor personally welcomed the Church to its new home at its grand opening saying, "I know your commitment to helping others is not limited to your own members. And I know the way you extend that help is by building the base from which you operate the organization which is home to every Scientologist here in Buffalo. Not only in the physical sense, but in your numbers and your ability, more importantly, your ability to deliver." In just the same way, when the Church of Scientology of San Francisco moved into the original Transamerica Building after fully refurbishing that turn-of-the-century classic, the Mayor of San Francisco acknowledged Scientologists for "making the Bay Area a better place for persons of all races, colors, creeds and walks of life." But what is coming in terms of new ideal Scientology churches, as covered at the L. Ron Hubbard Birthday Event for 2007, outshines any previously announced. Over the next two weeks every Scientology church and mission in the world will be holding its own celebration honoring L. Ron Hubbard, featuring translated versions of the event held in Florida to share the exciting news and launch a completely new level of expansion for the Scientology religion.

New Life Improvement Center in Plant City, Florida for the Church of Scientology of Tampa

The once bucolic town of Plant City, which began revitalizing its downtown in the 1990's, added the Church of Scientology of Tampa's Life Improvement Center to its roster of buildings, with the March 18th ribbon cutting at 112 North Collins Street. More info here...

scientology Churches Around the World Celebrate the Birthday of L. Ron Hubbard

L. Ron Hubbard In a tradition that dates back to the 1970's, Scientologists in churches and missions around the world commemorate the March 13th birthday of Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard in the way he himself asked it to be celebrated—by greatly expanding their service to the communities in which they live. L. Ron Hubbard once wrote, "A being is only as valuable as he can serve others," and taking this to heart, Scientologists contribute many hundreds of thousands of hours each year as Volunteer Ministers, manning tents in and around their home towns or traveling to distant lands to participate in Goodwill Tours or providing emergency relief in times of disaster. Many thousands more provide drug education and prevention to the youth of their cities, promote the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, protect the rights of their fellows by cleaning up the field of mental health and reverse plummeting moral standards in society by distributing copies of The Way to Happiness, a common sense moral code written by L. Ron Hubbard.