Saddleback (Part 1)

Day 59- Saddleback: When Church Goes on Vacation

Whoa.

Just, whoa.

Like, really.  Whoa.

In Jim & Casper Go to Church, Jim and Casper joked about Saddleback’s campus resembling Disneyland.  At first, I thought they were just messing around and maybe being a little condescending toward the place (which --as much as I love that book-- is pretty typical of their writing).  As it turns out, Disneyland is actually a fairly good analogy for the feel of this campus, and the second I drove up Purpose Drive and passed under an immense “Welcome to Saddleback” sign on a pedestrian walkway from the parking garage to the worship center, I suspected that the atheist and the former pastor had been onto something with their description.

I drove around the neighborhood for a bit trying to get a feel for the community surrounding Saddleback, and I quickly discovered that I am very out of my element when it comes to assessing Southern California neighborhoods.  While I can usually drive/walk around a community for a while and tell by the architecture and the age of the buildings what sort of neighborhood I’m in, the uniform architecture of much of this part of the country (especially there in Lake Forest and the neighboring Mission Viejo) had me a little thrown off.  Everything has a red tile roof and beige stucco walls.  Everything.  Houses, franchise businesses, churches-- it is all the same architecture.  The uniformity of the area makes things difficult to assess, especially since red tile and stucco are materials that are designed to make a building look sort of timeless anyway, so it’s pretty much impossible for me to assess how recently all this was constructed.  The houses around here aren’t all tremendous, but there are quite a few gated communities.  Truth be told, it sort of feels like Cordova, TN, except with palm trees.  I think it’s probably safe to guess that this neighborhood is fairly affluent.

Okay, a quick assist from Wikipedia told me that, according to a 2008 estimate, Mission Viejo’s median household income is $93,330, and Lake Forest’s is $86,285.  Both communities are over 75% white with the majority of households being married couples living together.  Also, the majority of the population are middle aged adults, and, in both communities, a single-digit percentage fall below the poverty line (5.3% in Lake Forest and 4.4% in Mission Viejo).  This middle aged population seemed to be the most strongly represented group at Saddleback, and the church seemed fairly representative of the demographics of its community in most other ways as well, but more on that later.

Saddleback has multiple parking lots around their slew of buildings, so finding the proper lot was kind of a confusing process, and I think I still parked in the wrong place since I had a bit of a walk to the worship center.  The setting is incredibly relaxing and sort of has the feel of a resort.  Palm trees line the paths between buildings, all of which are in that same Southern California architectural style.  In an aesthetic similar to Willow Creek’s, there are fountains here and there designed to resemble waterfalls, often running the lengths of staircases and footpaths.  Someone may need to explain to me why so many large-campus megachurches have waterfalls.  I’m starting to wonder if there’s something about them that is a throwback to baptism, but they’re also somehow more meditative-- sort of a fusion of eastern and western water imagery.  Like New Life, the church actually has a big tent for their other worship services, but while New Life just had one, Saddleback has three, and they are all used on a weekly basis for worship.  Incidentally, the variety of worship styles available is fairly staggering.  I’ve heard that, in the church’s early days, members were asked to submit their favorite radio stations, and the church actually designed its worship services based on that selection.  I know that the church should strive to create its own culture or overcome the culture or not be too influenced by the culture, but I still have to admit that the radio station thing seems like a pretty cool idea to me-- might be a way to prevent the obnoxiously petty worship wars that plague so many of our churches these days.  Seeking to ensure that everyone has access to a worship style with which they are comfortable, services at Saddleback include:

“Saddleback Worship Center”- standard fare contemporary worship

(Worship Center; 4:30PM and 6:30PM on Saturdays; 9AM, 11:15AM, and 5PM on Sundays)

“El Encuentro”- Spanish service

(Tent 1; 11:15AM on Sundays)

“FUEL”- shorter service designed for younger adults

(The Refinery youth/young adult center; 5PM on Sundays)

“Overdrive”- more rock-based music designed for a concert feel

(Tent 2; 9AM and 11:15AM on Sundays)

“Praise!”- gospel choir

(Tent 3; 9AM and 11:15AM on Sundays)

Terrace Café- all Worship Center services are broadcast live to the café

(Terrace Café; 4:30PM and 6:30PM on Saturdays; 9AM, 11:15AM, and 5PM on Sundays)

“Traditions”- hymns and choruses designed to give a small church feel

(The Plaza Room; 9AM)

That’s seven worship venues with 17 possible services on the main campus alone, and all of them will have the same Rick Warren sermon (either live or prerecorded) broadcast in from the worship center.  The church has also gone multisite now, so that’s even more potential variety in worship.  According to the church’s statistics shared on the big screen prior to worship, 20,000 people attend worship on Saddleback’s Lake Forest campus in a given weekend, with 40,000 participating in 5,100 small groups throughout the week.  Those are some big numbers, but I’m getting off topic.  Back to my exploration of the campus itself . . .

Driving in, I noticed a fleet of white buses in the parking lot, all bearing the Saddleback name.  This made me wonder if the church might have a significant homebound or elderly population that required transportation, but, on the other hand, the immense children’s building suggested that the church appealed to a younger clientele.  I can only imagine what these facilities must have looked like inside, but as a single adult male, I always feel a little sketchy investigating kids’ facilities.  In the back of my mind, I always have the fear that I’m going to get kicked out of a church for my research, so best not to add fuel to the fire by walking around and taking pictures of their children’s center.  Sure, I could invent a cover story that I’m a youth director seeking to imitate the church’s programs (since I’m sure they get that all the time, and it’s not even completely untrue since I really was a youth director up until two months ago), but still, better to admit honestly that I am a student and then enter into the obligatory lengthy explanation of this project.  Yep, while folks are usually pretty hospitable to a visiting researcher, that is a conversation that still has some awkwardness about it.  “Well, I’m curious if your big size and your celebrity pastor enhance or inhibit your missions potential and relationship to the local community.”  I get a lot of weird reactions to that one.

Wow, that was a long tangent.  Where was I?

After walking around the campus and poking my head in a few buildings, I made my way up to the Terrace Café on the rooftop overlooking the worship center.  The café is one of the more pleasant environments I’ve encountered on this journey.  With comfortable seating around green faux-marble patio tables, the area is comfortably shaded by a pavilion roof and a smattering of beach umbrellas.  Around the room are a number of TV screens, installed so that people can relax in the café and watch the service in comfort with a cool, non-alcoholic drink in hand.  Resurrection had a similar concept in the coffee shop in their main foyer, but watching the service in comfort wasn’t quite the intention there; it was more so that people could continue to watch the sermon if they had to leave the room for some reason.  As I sat and took in the environment, I struck up a conversation with Carol, a regular volunteer at the café.  She informed me that this was actually one of the first really hot weekends they had had.  “Sometimes you see folks out here in scarves and mittens!”  She pointed out the large heaters around the café used to make the environment more livable in the cooler months.  Again, Saddleback seems to be all about facilitating a comfortable worship experience.  I decided that, after the 4:30 service in the worship center, I would come out to the café to watch the 6:30 on the screens.  I wondered if the environment would be more conducive to conversation, and maybe, just maybe, I might even be able to use my laptop.  Hard to beat that speedy Saddleback wifi connection.  Carol agreed that my first service should be in the worship center though, especially since Rick Warren would be speaking there in person today.  I wanted to make sure I got the full Saddleback experience, so attending that service was essential.  Also, while I’m thinking about this, I still think that “sanctuary” is the most appropriate name for a worship gathering space, but at least “worship center” sounds more reverent than “auditorium”-- never quite got over that at Willow Creek.  Nope, I wasn’t just there to listen in an auditorium; I was there to worship and to hear Rick Warren and to learn.

Relationship with the SBC

There’s something I have to address before jumping into the service.  This issue came up a bit when I visited Summit, but I’m always just a little uneasy when going into Southern Baptist churches, and I’m a big believer in addressing any potential biases when analyzing a church, so here goes.  I’ve had a somewhat begrudging relationship with the SBC almost since birth, much of it having to do with the conservative political movement within the organization that left many seminary professors and missionaries without jobs and many churches booted from their associations, all in the name of hunting down the phantom specter of liberalism within the denomination (the existence of which I still question since survey data suggests that less than 5% of Southern Baptists self-identified as liberal during the midst of the SBC’s hard turn to the right).  I think I may have to delve into this further in a later post since I’ll have a good bit to write about from this weekend with Saddleback and Mosaic, but the SBC’s conservative movement makes for some fascinating reading.  In fact, it’s a political thriller that could rival John Grisham, and I say that having devoted a whole year of college to studying this event.  I would argue that the conservative shift was the most efficiently and ruthlessly organized American religious movement during the latter half of the twentieth century, and its effects are still felt today both in the SBC itself and in the offshoot Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (the organization of politically moderate Baptist refugees of which I am a member).  Many young SBC leaders want to put that controversy behind them, such as when Rev. Frank Page made the famous statement, “I’m an inerrantist, but I’m just not mad about it.”  Likewise, the CBF is now trying to find its own way apart from its checkered and painful history with the SBC.  Still, after three decades of nastiness, everyone’s wounds still sting a bit, and though many churches maintain a dual-alignment with both CBF and SBC, the relationship between these two factions is fairly tense.

With its tremendous numbers, widespread missions efforts, and prominent literature (such as the 40 Days of Purpose and Celebrate Recovery programs), Saddleback is kind of the jewel in the SBC crown these days, but at the same time, the church doesn’t exactly flaunt its relationship with the Convention, and you could spend hours on the church’s website without ever finding a single reference to its denominational affiliation.  In fact, Saddleback even left the word “Baptist” out of the church’s name in order to avoid the negative stigma of the SBC (bitter internal debates, boycotting Disney for its policies toward LGBT employees, political chicanery surrounding recent U.S. political campaigns, “Bible-thumper” stereotypes, etc.).  Saddleback knows that the SBC has some serious baggage, and even though Rick Warren received his training at Southwestern (a proud SBC seminary), the church seeks to distance itself from that reputation in the public eye.  After all, it wouldn’t be smart to pick a fight with Disneyland when it’s right in your backyard.  Additionally, Rick Warren has taken virtually no part in Southern Baptist politics, even though the presidency of that organization would certainly be his if he wanted it.  For that reason, even though so much of Saddleback’s theology is highly Southern Baptist, the church almost functions more like a non-denom.

Keeping all this in mind, I came to Saddleback with a few axes to grind, so this will be one of my more commentary-heavy write-ups since there are quite a few things (good and bad) that I’ll need to address.  A little part of me was sort of hoping to find some horrendous heresy that I could use to discount the whole church, but I managed to stifle that instinct for the most part.  Over all, even though I certainly don’t agree with him on everything, Rick Warren’s a good guy, and the church fills an important niche.  They help a lot of people find fulfillment in Christ, and they have a lot of interesting programs designed to help members grow deeper in their faith and build connections to the rest of the world through missions, evangelism, and the simple building of relationships.  Of course, that’s not to say my experience at Saddleback was 100% positive, but there’s a lot of good stuff going on there.