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Megachurches

  
 
ibis the being
16:30 / 14.04.05
The New York Times Magazine recently published an article called "The Soul of the New Exurb," reprinted here, about the growing megachurch phenomenon in US suburbs (or exurbs - extended sprawl). Megachurches are non-Catholic Christian churches with populations over 2,000 - there are currently about 280 of them in the nation. Megachurches typically offer a variety of "side doors" to attract new memebers, such as recovery groups, counselors, parenting classes, even schools. The churches themselves are modeled after shopping malls rather than chapels, with features like cafes, gift shops, video games, etc. Religious iconography, rituals, explicit doctrine, and the Bible are downplayed in favor of Christian rock performances and motivational speech-style sermons. The megachurch strongly fosters a sense of community and member involvement.

There are two good reasons to be concerned about megachurches, it seems to me. From a secular standpoint, their influence on American culture is daunting. Churches with thousands of members that deemphasize studies of scripture while pushing communal solidarity run a serious risk of creating large populations of uninformed and fanatical chauvinists. It's worrying that megachurch sermons largely eschew Gospel teachings and instead focus on "relevant" issues like abortion and homosexuality. With the rate of growth of those churches, their attractiveness to political campaigners, and the fact that they're opening schools, I think it's a cause for concern to Americans who don't feel Christianity should have a dominance in our culture.

And then also, even from a Christian perspective, the idea of "fun" being elevated past study, prayer, and worship is upsetting. Megachurches take a corporate approach to growth, viewing potential members basically as consumers. Isn't it unavoidable that a church will lose depth if it's so focused on breadth? Or is it enough just to bring more people to the faith?
 
 
alejandrodelloco
01:06 / 15.04.05
This may seem kinda goofy and weird, but who's read Snow Crash? Remember the church in that? The whole thing was about how Elvis killed JFK to save America from Communism. Christianity doesn't have a lot to do with megachurches...
 
 
charrellz
04:47 / 15.04.05
I know I wrote a post for this earlier...where is it? Why do you hate me, Barbelith? Well here goes again:

My aunt has been attending Fellowship Church for sometime now, and they've recently opened a satellite church near bmy parents house. By satellite church, I mean they have a live band here, and when the sermon starts at the main church an hour away, a big screen comes down and the sermon is shown via satellite. Needless to say, way to many people attend this place. And it is huge. My brother and I are always reminded of the sprawling temples in the Baldur's Gate games, only without all the cool decorations (and zombies).

This particular church has always confused me with its mix of "Hey, we're hip! Rock & Roll!" and then sudden shift to southern baptist "You're gonna burn in Hell, sinner!" mode. The pastor even generally seems compassionate and open-minded, until he tries to sneak in an anti-gay, anti-premarital sex, anti-birth control message. I think my defining moment for Fellowship Church was the easter service in which Jesus (blonde, white, and quite muscular) was crucified while a cover band played an Evanesence song.

As far as megachurches in general, I think they're a bad thing. I think church should be a private and intimate thing (the whole don't pray in the street thing Jesus mentioned), and these huge churches seem to be to much about social status and giant community than communion with good and close-knit family like relations with people who share religous beliefs. I have noticed a real lack of actual teaching too. The sermons tend to center around needing to know Jesus and that you can only know Jesus by studying the Bible in church (and with plenty of tithing), accepting Jesus, and now listen to rock music and look at the pretty laser show and 40" plasma screens and put some money in the velvet sacks being passed around.

And don't get me wrong, I think 'contemporary' services are a good thing. Lose the dogma, loosen up, and remember that God wants you to be joyful while serving Him. But when the sheer size of the church gets that large, I think something gets lost and the focus moves away from Jesus.

As usual, I'm losing my own train of thought, so I'm going to finish up. I'll end on a fun note: my favorite part of going to Fellowship Church when dragged along on holidays etc. is watching the middle-aged rhythmless church-goers attempt to clap along with the music.
 
 
charrellz
04:51 / 15.04.05
I just thought I should add something. In case you didn't pick up on it, the previous view is my personal view. I understand that others may think the exact opposite regarding things like the importance of community in a church, but I think the key element here is personal preference. I think a sense of community/family is necessary at a church, and I don't feel I can properly connect with 5,000 other people. If you feel otherwise, have fun, just don't rip apart my post on those grounds. The spelling errors are up for grabs though.
 
 
ibis the being
12:47 / 15.04.05
I think a sense of community/family is necessary at a church, and I don't feel I can properly connect with 5,000 other people.

Well, this is exactly the thing. 5,000 people in a megachurch aren't really connecting on a spiritual level (I would argue), they're building a "sense of community" and identity that is has strong loyalty but little depth and curiosity. That, to me, is a recipe for chauvinism and potentially even fascism. Five or even fifty people studying the Bible together bond by asking questions, sharing insights, and praying over scripture. 5,000 or 15,000 people singing Christian rock and drinking lattes together "bond" over fitting in to a group of like-minded families.

The churches are not built on the idea that "I need personal redemption," but rather "I want to surround myself with others that think like me." See this passage from the Times article:

"'Whatever a person is like, I try to find common ground with him so he'll let me tell him about Christ and let Christ save him,' '' [Tom] read, quoting one of McFarland's recent sermons. ''Having been deputy sheriffs, we have tended to judge people from what we see them do -- we had to because that's how we stayed alive in that job -- but now it's about not judging people.''

When you ask people how Radiant has changed their lives, they will almost invariably talk about how it helped open their hearts. But there's a kind of narrowing going on here as well, which became clear a few minutes later, when Tom flipped to another passage from a recent sermon. '' 'Some seed fell among the thorny weeds, and the weeds grew up with them and choked the good plants,' '' he read, quoting Luke 8:7. Then he added his exegesis: ''We've had friends who were not Christian, and for me they were like the thorny weeds,'' he said. ''We've had to commit ourselves to friends who could help us grow spiritually.''

A few years ago, while I was struggling to find spiritual footing, I found myself at a megachurch service. I noticed that the language was purposefully vague. While it still included Jesus Christ as Savior, God was referred to as "He or She." And yet, despite the fact that I no longer accepted the Bible as literal nor traditional dogma as true, this bothered me. It seemed obvious to me that the ambiguous language was not in a spirit of religious curiosity, but rather in a spirit of mass appeal, a consumerism-based model.

And again, this is how I think megachurches damage the Christian religion as well as the secular culture - sure, Church is allowed to be fun, but without scriptural study or religious discussion, what is the point? You might as well join a country club, if all you're looking for is a sense of belonging to a group and having a good time. To use an irreverent comparison, college doesn't have to be difficult and boring either. You can use it to make friends and have a lot of parties - but aren't you largely missing the point of being there?
 
 
Our Lady Has Left the Building
14:12 / 15.04.05
But if you'll forgive me, I don't see anything worrying in your post (apart from the usual anti-life messages) apart from the typical complaint of fans of indie bands; "I hated them when they sold out and got lots of fans".
 
 
ibis the being
14:26 / 15.04.05
Really? This is the crux of what worries me - "I want to surround myself with others that think like me." That, in combination with the scale of these things and their potential influence on the culture through massive voter drives and grammar-level charter schools.
 
 
Chiropteran
16:30 / 15.04.05
Don't worry, ibis, I'm worried too, on several levels. I'd say more, but my break's over.

~L
 
 
Charlie's Horse
16:37 / 15.04.05
The following night I heard this same message, communicated more explicitly, at Radiant's youth service. ''If I asked how many of you have close friends who are unbelievers, a lot of you would probably raise your hands,'' the pastor told the crowd of about 150 teenagers, most of whom looked dressed for a rock concert. ''I'll tell you right now, if one of you is a believer and the other is not, your relationship is doomed.''

Now there's a worthy message! I guess that 'Love one another' bit only applies selectively; I always got the feeling that Jesus meant it that way. 'Love one another' just implies a 'but' at the end of it, an exception, a clause that gets you out of such an onerous task. I mean, love one another? Hah! What was that wacky messiah figure of ours smoking?

Grrrrr..

This isn't the 'gosh, why'd they get popular' argument - Jesus has been pretty popular for a while now. He's got some fans, and that's cool. It's when the fans start editing the man himself, and create a huge market for their hollow rendition. That's when it goes to shit. This case displays a change in emphasis from spiritual growth toward consumerism. Rather than elevate consumerism, it's killing the soul. What's left of it. Nothing wrong with a spirituality that makes you feel good, but if that's all it does, what the hell kind of spirit you chasing? Might as well just be taking some Paxil, sitting on the couch watching TV.

As though love could exist without differences, without pains, and without the acceptance of them.

This just makes me want to crash course my way to the band's stage of one of these things and rain fiery, winged words about how loving another and staying in comforting little packages and communities are practically mutually exclusive. I want to just stand and deliver until stigmatta appear, cutting through my wrists and feet and blood trickles down through the refurbished malls, healing this. This mistake. This infected error.
 
 
Seth
16:41 / 15.04.05
On the size issue, a lot of these huge churches have several different expressions of church tailored to the demographic of the congregation. My old church had close to a thousand people who went to it; there were large fairly middle of the road family meetings on Sunday morning; student congregations on Sunday evening which were a lot more unstructured and experimental; massive area celebrations and international conferences; a teenagers meeting with live bands or DJs on Saturday night; a meeting for older people on Sunday afternoons with hymns rather than new style choruses; cell churches of five to ten people midweek; not to mention numerous other meetings, initiatives, Alpha sessions, training groups etc that met in and around the main hall.

The church maintained the message that the style changed but the message remained the same. In practise that’s impossible to achieve, because regardless of whether or not you’re part of a mainstream religion you’ll always be a party of one when it comes to individual belief. So plenty of different things were said by numerous speakers who contradicted each other on numerous occasions: religious business as usual, the progressives in with the traditionalists and the fundamentalists.

With these large churches it’s incumbent on the individual to choose how much they’d like to become part of the community. There are people who want to get involved with everything and everyone, and that’s fine. There are people who want to come and hide away at the back and just experience the atmosphere without engaging with people too much. That’s fine too. Just because a church is large it doesn’t mean it strips you of the ability to choose to get to know people, to find your “church within a church.” I guess that comes from the feeling of being lost in the crowd, but you can feel other things instead.

Dumbing down was an accusation that was levelled at my old church, too. To an extent you’re right: it’s about pitching to your audience. When you’ve got a huge congregation of people from all ages, races and backgrounds you can’t really go into an in depth analysis of Hebrew and Greek. It’s just too dry for the majority of people, so the motivational preach and ministry style was favoured. Give people an experience that’ll help them get through the week. Through newsletters and announcements everyone was aware of the meatier, more content heavy services, trainings and events. Again, you choose your particular expression of church.

I really liked that way of running things. It’s very organic and modular: if someone decided they wanted to run a cell group they could. If you had an idea every leader had an open door policy: they’d listen, and often encourage people to become leaders themselves and take the initiative. The leadership team spent a lot of time serving and supporting the congregation and the kind of ideas they wanted to implement.

Of course, while the structures were flexible and organic, there was still bickering, gossip, disputes, arseholes, bigots and fundamentalists, as well as people who are mad as a bagful of testicles. You have a congregation that size, you’ll get all sorts. The denomination was Charismatic Evangelical with all the usual weirdness that entails, and with all the usual spread of beliefs on controversial issues, some of which was right on, some of which was dodgy as fuck. There was never a spoken consensus from the front, though.

And yes, sometimes we had bands and video screens and smoke machines and a lightshow. A couple of times we even had pyrotechnics. But at heart it was just a big church. I’m sure all sorts could be written about it depending on your perspective. I mean, we ran Alpha, we were evangelical, we wanted to brainwash new converts! Hardly headline news.

It was one dirty hurtload of church. But it was just a church.
 
 
ibis the being
17:17 / 15.04.05
So plenty of different things were said by numerous speakers who contradicted each other on numerous occasions: religious business as usual, the progressives in with the traditionalists and the fundamentalists.

See, though, I think this indicates actual content, albeit conflicted, whereas I gathered from the picture painted of Radiant, and also from that one megachurch I tried out, that at megachurches getting into the meat of the Gospels is - pardon the pun - religiously avoided. Charlie's Horse used the word "hollow," also apt.
 
 
ibis the being
17:23 / 15.04.05
So plenty of different things were said by numerous speakers who contradicted each other on numerous occasions: religious business as usual, the progressives in with the traditionalists and the fundamentalists.

See, though, I think this indicates actual content, albeit conflicted, whereas I gathered from the picture painted of Radiant, and also from that one megachurch I tried out, that at megachurches getting into the meat of the Gospels is - pardon the pun - religiously avoided. Charlie's Horse used the word "hollow," also apt.
 
 
charrellz
17:26 / 15.04.05
I don't know how it applies to the other megachurches, but at Fellowship, it seemed hard to do your own thing. You had to have connections with the higher-ups to be able to get things into newsletters or get an outside class/session going. And the idea of another person speaking to the congregation was unheard of. I always thought it would be nice for them to atleast have a little open mic, question-and-answer thing afterwards, but instead it was always "the pastor's done, get the hell out."

I think the biggest problem was that questioning the pastor's views was not encouraged (possibly not even allowed). The focus was too much on 'look at our cool building' and not enough on God. These people seemed tied more by socio-economic ties than religous bonds. They were a club, not a family. I think that really goes against what church should be.
 
 
Seth
17:31 / 15.04.05
I don’t think it’ll have a huge impact on the religion, no more so than how things are already. I’ve been to a couple of American churches and their principles and ideas didn’t seem too related to the Bible anyway. Dropping the Christian content seems like a more honest reflection of what they’ve been doing for years.
 
  
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