McChurches
The rise of mega-churches continues:
I attended Rick Warren (he of The Purpose-Driven Life)'s Saddleback Church for a time when I lived in California a few years ago. I didn't like it. The hugeness of the place---it is quite literally a stadium---and the slickness of the presentation, with top Christian acts providing the music and the Mad-Lib style of the sermon (congregants fill in the missing words on provided note cards---"_______ loves us." ) completely turned me off. It was artificial, much more like attending one of those Get Rich Quick conferences than going to church. I suspect Pastor Warren couldn't name 1% of his flock on sight; there are simply too many.
There are other problems with mega-churches.
Money corrupts, and the amount of money flowing through them is so huge as to corrupt absolutely.
More corrupting perhaps than the cash is the influence. Huge numbers of Protestant churches have adopted Warren's 40 Days of Purpose program; he is a much-in-demand speaker as a result. One wonders how much time is spent with his own church as a result. WordGirl and I attended a very popular "beginner" church; the pastor didn't set foot in the place but once throughout the months we attended, so busy was he with the radio talk show, the tours, etc. One wonders how the congregation feel about having an absent pastor. And if the shepherd is out searching for bigger and bigger flocks, one might wonder how committed he was to the flock he is presently responsible for, now set free to roam at will.
The watering down of theology is the most serious concern. Putting butts in pews comes at a price, these days. The faithful already attend church; it's probably too difficult to lure them away from their own, and hardly a Christian thing to do. Yet the vast majority of Americans who do not today attend church regularly are highly unlikely to begin doing so in an orthodox church. Thus mega-churches tend to serve up Christian Lite---the whole "Jesus is Love" school of Christianity: inoffensive and innocuous, requiring no more of us than we drag our Birkenstock-and-shorts-clad selves in at some convenient time on Sunday (or Saturday---we're not exclusive) to listen to Christian rock and fill out Mad Libs.
Somehow, I don't think that's what Christ had in mind.
Christ called us to the hard, righteous path---to cast aside the concerns of this world and any notion of our own comfort or safety and follow him to glory. He didn't sugarcoat the pain and danger this would entail. The PowerPoint presentations, easy listening music, and weak gruel served up from carefully-excised Bible readings cheapen the good news, I think. Jesus wasn't Oprah. Or Tony Robbins.
I can't help but see these mega-churches as new Towers of Babel, springing up wherever people in their arrogance presume size matters to God. There is nothing we can erect on Earth to compete with the Earth itself, created by God. Yet still we labor on, trying to reach heaven by building that tower higher and higher.
This too shall pass. Undoubtedly, some number of those brought back to church by the Monsters of God Summer Tour will move on to more orthodox churches; most will fall away when the novelty dies. The money and power scandals will level some of the bigger mega-churches, leading to those condemnatory investigative pieces the LWM love to produce when the institutions involved are religious ones.
And the faithful will fall to their knees in their little churches, in their little communities, bringing what little light they have always brought to a big, dark world, as they have always done.
McLean Bible may have a gloss of sophistication and political pull because of its locale in the Washington suburbs. But it is typical of hundreds of mega-churches across the country with its emphasis on biblical teaching, conservative morality, and personal transformation combined with a vibrant worship style and user-friendly facilities. There are some 1,200 mega-churches (churches with at least 2,000 regular worshippers) in the United States today, a number double what it was five years ago. With an average attendance of 3,500, that means over 4 million Americans attend mega-churches in a typical week.
Half of the mega-churches are in the South, but a quarter are in the West; California has more mega-churches than any other states. Half of all mega-churches are in new suburbs. A quarter of them are Baptist and one third of them are non-denominational. Six percent are Assemblies of God (Pentecostal) and 5 percent are United Methodist. In a report on mega-churches, the Hartford Seminary Research Institute explained that many mega-churches are nondenominational and most others often act as such, but that the vast majority do belong to a denomination.
The average income of a mega-church is $6 million. According to the Hartford report, mega-churches do not emphasize money, as skeptics might imagine, though worshippers are encouraged to tithe. The mega-churches are more than simply Sunday extravaganzas and have "high spiritual expectations and feature serious orthodox beliefs and preaching." Contrary to liberal notions of Republican manipulation, most mega-churches are not overtly political and internalize a separation between the church and the politics of the worshippers. And most mega-churches intentionally attempt to be racially and economically inclusive.
I attended Rick Warren (he of The Purpose-Driven Life)'s Saddleback Church for a time when I lived in California a few years ago. I didn't like it. The hugeness of the place---it is quite literally a stadium---and the slickness of the presentation, with top Christian acts providing the music and the Mad-Lib style of the sermon (congregants fill in the missing words on provided note cards---"_______ loves us." ) completely turned me off. It was artificial, much more like attending one of those Get Rich Quick conferences than going to church. I suspect Pastor Warren couldn't name 1% of his flock on sight; there are simply too many.
There are other problems with mega-churches.
Money corrupts, and the amount of money flowing through them is so huge as to corrupt absolutely.
More corrupting perhaps than the cash is the influence. Huge numbers of Protestant churches have adopted Warren's 40 Days of Purpose program; he is a much-in-demand speaker as a result. One wonders how much time is spent with his own church as a result. WordGirl and I attended a very popular "beginner" church; the pastor didn't set foot in the place but once throughout the months we attended, so busy was he with the radio talk show, the tours, etc. One wonders how the congregation feel about having an absent pastor. And if the shepherd is out searching for bigger and bigger flocks, one might wonder how committed he was to the flock he is presently responsible for, now set free to roam at will.
The watering down of theology is the most serious concern. Putting butts in pews comes at a price, these days. The faithful already attend church; it's probably too difficult to lure them away from their own, and hardly a Christian thing to do. Yet the vast majority of Americans who do not today attend church regularly are highly unlikely to begin doing so in an orthodox church. Thus mega-churches tend to serve up Christian Lite---the whole "Jesus is Love" school of Christianity: inoffensive and innocuous, requiring no more of us than we drag our Birkenstock-and-shorts-clad selves in at some convenient time on Sunday (or Saturday---we're not exclusive) to listen to Christian rock and fill out Mad Libs.
Somehow, I don't think that's what Christ had in mind.
Christ called us to the hard, righteous path---to cast aside the concerns of this world and any notion of our own comfort or safety and follow him to glory. He didn't sugarcoat the pain and danger this would entail. The PowerPoint presentations, easy listening music, and weak gruel served up from carefully-excised Bible readings cheapen the good news, I think. Jesus wasn't Oprah. Or Tony Robbins.
I can't help but see these mega-churches as new Towers of Babel, springing up wherever people in their arrogance presume size matters to God. There is nothing we can erect on Earth to compete with the Earth itself, created by God. Yet still we labor on, trying to reach heaven by building that tower higher and higher.
This too shall pass. Undoubtedly, some number of those brought back to church by the Monsters of God Summer Tour will move on to more orthodox churches; most will fall away when the novelty dies. The money and power scandals will level some of the bigger mega-churches, leading to those condemnatory investigative pieces the LWM love to produce when the institutions involved are religious ones.
And the faithful will fall to their knees in their little churches, in their little communities, bringing what little light they have always brought to a big, dark world, as they have always done.
posted by Teflon at 5:55 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
To each his own, I guess. In Atlanta, I used to be a member at First Baptist Atlanta (Charles Stanley) and have been to Northpoint Community (Andy Stanley) and First Baptist Woodstock (Johnny Hunt). I liked each of them. I didn't feel that they were watered down in any way. There is a danger of missing out on the "small church feel", but that's where Sunday School and small groups fill the void. And they have filled the void very well for me.
The music, to me, is so much more worshipful than it has been in any smaller church I've been to. I grew up in a church of about 30-50 people and we just sang the old hymns in a lifeless way. In the megachurches I've attended, though, real worship through singing was a big part of the service. And it was even better when a band "plugged in" and played praise and worship music.
Megachurches aren't for everyone, but if you can provide a Christ-centered experience where folks truly feel like they are worshipping, feeding, and being fed, I think it's wonderful to do it 2000 or 20,000 at a time just like it is 10 at the time.
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