I had my first encounter with a mega church last week in tragic circumstances. We are old friends with a couple who had struggled and grieved with the protracted death of a beautiful young girl, their granddaughter. We wanted to attend her funeral to show our love and concern for them and their family and the tragedy they had to endure.
As we approached the church I was surprised, but not terribly so, at the traffic awaiting entrance to the huge parking lot. This is a prominent family with many local branches and a large crowd of mourners and well wishers was to be expected. Naturally they would need a large hall. We were thirty minutes early but young lady in a polo shirt with logo passed us on to the next of her similarly attired colleagues to finally place us at the very back of a large parking lot. A fifteen minute walk led us to the main sanctuary which was actually the largest of several buildings in a complex of connected structures. At the door we were greeted by more of the casually uniformed young people who directed us with a greeting and a smile to the inner sanctuary. An open stage populated by musicians and their attendants was confronted by a 270 degree phalanx of increasingly raised seating. We snagged two empty seats near the front, but we had to ignore the directions of yet another polo shirted acolyte to do so.
“So this is a mega church”, I mused silently as I surveyed the scene. How different from the small building of cinder block and tin that housed the neighborhood Baptist Church of my youth. A huge flat panel display showing a montage of “heavenly” wallpaper dominated the front of the hall. When the musicians initiated the ceremony, it was with new wave, pop rock, Jesus music that I had a hard time differentiating from the stuff you hear with your kids/grandkids on the Disney radio channel. But it was very, very professional. In fact everything about the whole operation looked like it was conceived and managed by the same Silicon Valley pr firm that manages Apple’s product launches. The cushioned seats, ergonomically perfect, gave one a sense of nesting rather than sitting. Perfect temperature, perfect lighting, perfect color tones all conspired to convey understated prosperity rather than holiness.
The physical surroundings were the perfect context for the minister? pastor? preacher? counsellor? shepherd? prefect? teacher? guru? He took the stage with an air of confidence, poise and self assurance couched in murmurings of self deprecation and humility. He appeared a slightly less well-dressed and larger version of Brad Pitt. The medium length, sculpted buzz cut and heavy, well defined torso, and military bearing called to mind a member of the Navy SEALS. It was when he spoke that the trouble began. He spoke softly with in a well modulated tone, with a rhythm and pace that suggested professional coaching and an inherent ability for the function.
His remarks had a calming but urgent sense. They had me leaning forward in my chair not so much to understand what he was saying but to anticipate his delivery. I found myself losing his message, but being beguiled by how he said what he said. At a scripted point the musicians took up their calling, and as I surveyed the audience around me, I saw people singing words to a song that was as foreign to me as if it had been in another language, and as they sang, many raised their arms and hands upward, slightly swaying. The only thing missing was the smell of ganja in the air or I would have thought I had been transported to a retro rock concert. It’s not going too far to say that the scene had a faint sense of “The Stepford Wives” on tranquilizers.
The minister/pastor/preacher/counsellor/shepherd/prefect/teacher/guru ended by saying ominously, “I have colleagues waiting in anterooms, if you should want to learn more about our church community”. Under the pretext of needing to find the WC, I was the first to leave the sanctuary…..much to my sorrow and relief. Sorrow for the family we had wanted to give solice for their loss, and relief that I could walk out the door never to return.
Clearly this place, this MegaChurch, this community of souls feeds the needs of its own in a way that I could not comprehend and would not personally tolerate. I could see that. My great fear is that the flock would believe pretty much whatever way this guy told them to believe without introspection or thought, and shape their public behavior in pretty much in any way that he suggested. My great fear continues…this guy may be so good at what he does, the environment so inviting, the music so emotionally compelling, the atmosphere so beguiling, that suspension of disbelief becomes the norm. No one would ever dare raise the question,”why am I standing here singing words I don’t really understand, with my hands upraised beseeching the ceiling?”
Back home, I googled “megachurch” and found that what I had seen was not an isolated instance. Megachurches, apparently, are spreading like Johnson grass. They are everywhere and getting bigger. Potter House in south Dallas has 28,000 members. Lakewood Community Church housed in a converted sports arena has an average Sunday morning crowd of 16,000 to hear a message of prosperity and religion. I dunno if they have standing room in the rear.
According to Wikipod, a typical Megachurch has over 2000 members, is fundamentalist and evangelical (tries overtly to convert others to their belief), has a charismatic and authoritative senior pastor, has many outreach and social ministries and a complex differentiated organization structure. Go figure. Are we talking about a global conglomerate or a church. Most of them have eschewed the traditional religious branding of the Baptists and Methodists and have opted for a naming convention that almost always include the term “Community” as in The All Things to All People Community Ministry. Shying from the conventional denominational naming gives, I suppose, a greater range of flexibility in developing and adopting a dogma that supports the ego of the pastor and the desires of the particular flock.
I may make fun of them, but I don’t take them lightly. I’m given to recall the advertisement on the telly for the NBA which shows some audacious feats of players and is captioned, “The NBA….these guys are really good”. As long as we could expect churches and church leaders to stay in their traditional places and play traditional roles….not to worry. But now, who knows. I’m worried.
As I was leaving the funeral, we were approached by one of the casually uniformed acolytes who smiled beatifically and said, “thank you so much for coming, we have a place for you in our community”. I said, albeit under my breath, “yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of”.
