Morning Meditation: Why Megachurches?

Okay, first, a little slightly disappointing news: I had a meeting fall through.  My Aunt Jeannie out in Colorado actually has a friend who knows Rev. Ted Haggard, so for a little while there, there was some speculation that I might get to interview one of the more controversial religious figures in America.  Rather than prying into his personal life or revisiting old controversies, I was really curious to get Rev. Haggard’s thoughts on the concept of the “celebrity preacher” and to see what sort of strains he perceived this role placing on pastors, their families, and their congregations.  I’m sorry I won’t get to interview him, and I totally understand why he would decline interviews right now as he works on his ministry in Colorado Springs, but I have been invited to attend his new church, and who am I to say no to an invite like that?  On to business though . . .

In talking about the project, I’ve had a question come up that I thought should be addressed at length in its own post.  The other day, I was asked why it is that I’m so fixated on the megachurch.  The answer is complicated, but I thought I’d explore it a bit this morning before I head back out to enjoy the beautiful Ohio atmosphere.

1) It’s Where the People Are

Throughout the gospels, while Jesus does spend some time in retreat or alone with his disciples, for the most part, Jesus tends to go where there are crowds, and the crowds tend to go where there is Jesus.  Part of my interest in the megachurch is just because there are so many people there, and where there is a crowd of that size, there is great potential to motivate discipleship.  I want to know how such a crowd has been brought together, and I want to look closely at how we’re using this church model.  I want to look at the feelings present in the room when I attend each church and see how the Spirit moves in each congregation.  I want to see what it is that brings people to these churches and what it is that keeps them coming back, and I also just want to spend time among God’s people as I prepare for ordination, and megachurches will afford me the opportunity to spend time among a lot of God’s people.

2) Curiosity and Relatability

I simply haven’t been to many megachurches.  Sure, I’ve visited a few for special events, but I can’t actually think of a time that I’ve ever just attended one on a Sunday morning.  Something draws people into these places, and it’s not like they just start out big, so there’s something besides size that has to get them going (even if size is part of what sustains them later).  I want to investigate this further, and even though Mark Chaves at Duke is providing some great insights into the phenomenon of the megachurch (particularly the economic side of it), there’s only so much I can glean from other people’s writing.  It’s time for some field work.

Additionally, I feel that the megachurch has taken on an intriguing role in the American psyche, and I suspect that it is starting to become the main image that gets conjured up in people’s minds whenever they hear talk of Christianity.  Not everyone knows my home church, but a good 75% of the country can tell you who Joel Osteen is.  Not everyone can name the twelve apostles or the Ten Commandments or the fruits of the spirit, but who hasn’t heard of Rick Warren?  In doing ministry in America, I’m suspecting more and more that a certain amount of fluency in all things megachurch is growing increasingly necessary.  I lack such fluency, so here goes nothing.

3) It’s Personal

I grew up in Memphis, TN, attending a smaller Southern Baptist Church in Midtown, and one of the things that never quite made sense to me was a big church out in the suburbs: Bellevue Baptist Church.  Bellevue had over two miles of hallways in its main building, and it had a campus that occupied hundreds of acres complete with education buildings, athletic facilities, and a sanctuary that could hold 7,000 people along with its celebrity pastor, Dr. Adrian “Old Golden Throat” Rogers, who passed in 2005.  Situated right there on I-40 (the main artery in and out of Memphis), Bellevue erected three large crosses for passing motorists to see, and the church was often described with the derisive nickname “Fort God.”  As part of the Southern Baptist Convention, they were our brothers and sisters, but I knew that the pastor out there preached a slightly different message than my pastor did.  This was before I really understood the massive political rift that had formed in the Southern Baptist Convention throughout the latter half of the 20^th Century, but is that ever a post for another day.

Sanctuary of Bellevue Baptist Church

I grew up hating Bellevue.  Even though I never attended a single service there (just a handful of youth conferences), I still hated the place.  I’m not sure what excuse I used, but really, as a teenager, it was just sort of fun to hate on something, and they seemed like an easy target.  My own perspective of the place was so biased that I’m not even sure I could tell you what the popular opinion of the church really was around the city.  They were very much a model for white flight, having started closer into town before moving out to the suburb of Cordova (where 60% of their congregation already lived at the time of the move).  My bias-laden suspicion is that the church was very much built up around Dr. Rogers’s personality, and a frequent joke heard in smaller Memphis churches was, “Well, members at [insert church name] can tell you what the Bible says, but members at Bellevue will just tell you what Dr. Rogers says the Bible says.”  Whether that statement was true or not, in retrospect, I sense a certain tone of spite and jealousy in it, and that’s not very Christian.  Because Dr. Rogers played such an active role in the denominational controversy that led indirectly to my leaving the Southern Baptist Convention (which led indirectly to my leaving the church entirely for much of college), there’s really no way I can talk about Bellevue through an unbiased lens.  Bellevue Baptist Church is the 60-pound cinderblock resting comfortably in the center of my megachurch baggage, and that’s why I’ve decided that this project has to include it.

I will be attending all sorts of megachurches throughout this summer (as well as smaller, highly active ones like New Song and Lawndale and the like), but one of my goals is to wind up at Bellevue, worship with them without all my usual note-taking and in-depth analysis, and hopefully stop grinding that axe.  I try not to judge all megachurches based on my long-standing bias against Bellevue, but I will admit that my perception is somewhat colored by it.  I’m unnerved by churches that have moved out to the suburbs to take advantage of lower property costs (one of Chaves’s insights), and something about a bunch of smiling, white people in an auditorium together always just kind of weirds me out.  Again, these are not necessarily logical prejudices; they’re baggage, and one of my self-assigned tasks for the summer is to unpack that baggage and reconsider how the megachurch can be used effectively as a tool for Christian discipleship and ministry to the margins.

Oh, also, just FYI, I think size envy among churches is a very real problem, and I’ve heard some very nice, very level-headed people in small churches say some downright nasty things about larger churches.  I think that there’s a desire to define our worth by our size, and sometimes that manifests as an attack against a megachurch or an attempt to defend the diminishing size of a smaller church.  Even when we are consciously trying to push back on this idea, I think we still fall victim to it, but I think that’s something I’m going to have to crunch on a little more later this summer as I get more church visits under my belt.

So, to sum up, I’m attending megachurches because it’s where the people are, and where there are people, there’s a chance for me to learn and fellowship.  I’m attending megachurches because I’m curious about them and have comparatively little experience with them, but I feel called to understand this style of community for later work in ministry.  Lastly, I’m trying to set aside some baggage and break some of the stereotypes I have in my mind.

I’m interested in seeing how my opinion of the megachurch evolves this summer as I take a step back and try to assess honestly what these churches are doing right and where they could still stand to grow a bit (metaphorically that is).

Peace and Blessings,

Tom