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Church parking near stadiums scores big in win-win for congregations and sports fans_我的网站

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A | 1月10日，Bose希望将其备受赞誉的降噪技术从耳机到汽车。这家总部位于马萨诸塞州弗里明翰的公司刚刚推出了一项名为“安静舒适”的新技术，该技术声称能够测量车辆振动以消除日常驾驶中的噪音。 CHESTER, Pa. -- The Eagles and the NFL might still be the sports favorites at Calvary Baptist Church, just outside Philadelphia. But many here are also rooting for a neighboring team which last year reached the championship game of Major League Soccer.Their new-found fandom is all about location — and revenue from parking. The Philadelphia Union plays at Subaru Park, a stadium beside the Delaware River just a few blocks from Calvary in the economically challenged city of Chester. Its poverty rate is among the highest in the metro area.As the Union continues to attract loyal fans and reach new heights, so have the blessings bestowed on this historic church where Martin Luther King Jr. attended as a seminarian.It has been crucial. Like many other Black Protestant churches, Calvary Baptist struggled financially during the coronavirus pandemic. Attendance fell, and along with it, funding. But the church has transformed its parking lot to accommodate game-day fundraisers, with volunteers from the congregation staffing the lots and selling spaces for $15 per vehicle.These days, the church raises up to $3,000 per game — about half of what goes into the collection plate on Sundays, said its pastor, Keith Dickens. The welcome influx of extra money is being used to pay for utilities, ministries and a new speaker system that will allow Calvary to reach a broader audience by broadcasting its services online.“It’s been a blessing,” said Dickens, who on a recent game day proudly sported a Philadelphia Union hat. "Not only just to generate funding, but also to meet and minister to new people.”Across the nation, houses of worship located near stadiums — from Boston’s Fenway Park to the Green Bay Packers’ Lambeau Field — have opened their parking lots to legions of fans.For churches offering parking near pro-soccer stadiums, their coffers recently received an assist from the world’s best active player, Lionel Messi who joined an MLS roster this year. All 250 parking spaces at the Calvary lot were full when Messi’s Inter Miami played the Union.Jeffrey Scholes, co-author of “Religion and Sports in American Culture,” said churches like Calvary show a growing willingness to use “secular entities like sport for religious purposes” including, “continuing a ministry, feeding the poor, keeping the lights on, things that ideally churches do."In the past, Scholes said clergy might have preferred the “old-fashioned way” of getting churchgoers to donate while shunning the sports-fan parking business as too “worldly."“There’s just much more openness to different kinds of nonreligious tactics to perform the necessary functions of a church or synagogue or mosque,” Scholes said. It also offers an opportunity to share with fans the history of congregations like Calvary, which was founded in 1879 by a group of formerly enslaved Africans seeking freedom to worship.On a recent game day, fans decked in the Union's navy, signal blue and gold colors pulled into parking spots in front of Calvary's colorful mural that pays homage to King. The civil rights leader worshipped at the church from 1948-1951, when he attended Chester’s Crozer Theological Seminary. Chester has a notable cultural and industrial history, but now has economic difficulties that make Calvary's new parking revenue all the more appreciated.“For us, if it gives back to a cause, it makes it all the better,” Abe Gitterman, age 37 and Jewish, said before he paid the parking fee. Next to him, his 6-and 7-year-old sons pointed to the mural and asked parking attendant and church member Lisa Lewis if this was the same man they had learned about in school. “Yes,” she replied, smiling. “It feels good,” she later said, “to tell them the history about the church.”It can also be fun. In Lubbock, Texas, Leslie Cranford, a parishioner at St. John’s United Methodist Church, said Texas Tech football fans have tailgated with RVs — taking up to four spots ($10 each) — in the church parking lot, near the Red Raiders' Jones AT&T Stadium. Sometimes, rival fans park at the church. “We tell them: we got to charge you extra!” Cranford said, laughing. She introduced the parking program at her congregation two decades ago. On a good season, they make up to $2,000 per game. “Dwindling attendance is a problem," Cranford said. "So, this helps us maintain our ministries.” In Boston, the Christian Science Church opened its parking garage to the public in 2014. That includes Red Sox fans who can park for $30 — a lower rate than closer to Fenway Park. Kevin Ness, manager of the Christian Science Committees on Publication, said the revenue helps cover the operating expenses of Christian Science Plaza, a popular tourist attraction which sits on top of the garage in the Fenway neighborhood. “This in turn allows the contributions from members to directly support the worldwide healing mission of the church,” he said. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, Bethany Church began its Packers parking program in 2010.“We thought it would be a great avenue for outreach, and a way to get funds to help support the growing ministries,” Bethany’s administrative assistant, Jill Connerym said via email. The church doesn’t have a set charge, and instead asks for donation, Connery said, adding that “many people are very generous.”Packers parking helps fund programs, including youth ministries, small group learning and building facility upgrades, Connery said. The church parking lot is often full on game days.“We are known for our hospitality,” she said. “We had a volunteer who began giving rides to Lambeau from our parking lot, free of charge to whoever didn’t want to walk the .5 miles to the stadium. So, now we are known for our shuttle service, and friendly volunteers.”Churches also have embraced other fans. Nashville First Church of the Nazarene offered their parking lots for three shows attended by thousands at nearby Nissan Stadium during the Nashville leg of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. The parking program ($30 a spot) also is popular during Tennessee Titans games and has helped fund ministries in Nashville and missions in Haiti and Kenya.“Every one of these dollars comes right back in to help people,” said its senior pastor, Kevin Ulmet. “When people hear that, they love that, they say ‘we want to be a part of that.’ And that, to me, is the classic definition of win-win.”__Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.。

B | Bose指出，随着汽车的重量越来越轻，电动汽车越来越多，这种降噪技术可能会受到越来越多的关注。坐在安静的电动汽车里的司机比坐在嘈杂的内燃机车更容易受到道路噪音的影响。Bose将这项技术定位为展望未来，因为道路上会有更多的电动汽车。那么它是如何工作的呢？传统的车辆降噪方法包括使用更厚的绝缘材料或专用轮胎，以尽量减少在崎岖不平的道路上行驶时产生的噪音。但这些方法增加了车辆重量，降低了燃油效率。Bose使用加速度计、专有的信号处理软件、麦克风和汽车内置音响系统的组合来“电子控制不需要的声音”。Bose说：安装在车身上的加速度计使Bose算法能够连续测量产生噪音的振动。然后，利用该信息计算出通过车辆扬声器传输的消声信号，以降低目标噪声。放置在驾驶室中的麦克风监控残余噪音水平，允许系统调整控制信号以优化不同道路上的性能，并随车辆老化自动调整。虽然Bose有一个非常著名的降噪耳机，但它的车是一个非常不同和复杂的环境。该公司指出，自2010年以来，其汽车部门已向汽车制造商提供了ehc，这是一项用于降低劣质发动机噪音的高目标技术。Bose表示，在降噪技术的发展过程中，将与汽车制造商合作，将该技术直接安装在汽车生产过程中，首批支持安静舒适的汽车将于2021年底投产。