With the blogging portion of this project effectively wrapped up, I've decided to leave a table of contents here for quick viewing convenience. Click on the titles below for specific church visits, or feel free to browse the old entries on the right-hand side of the page. I've organized them by order of the church visits, adding several of the less congregation-specific articles at the end:
I hope this has been useful! It was a long journey, and a lot of this may yet find its way into a book, but for now, I simply carry these experiences with me. Feel free to contact me with questions, comments, and insights!
So, my supervisor at my work-study had an interesting observation regarding this blog that has me thinking that I need to get my butt in gear in the publishing department. "You know, as often as those megachurches change their formats and staffs and styles, you had better publish that material pretty quickly so that it will still be relevant." Now that I think of it, since I started writing about six months ago . . .
Rob Bell has announced his departure from Mars Hill.
Ted Haggard has announced that his family will appear on "Celebrity Wife Swap."
Joel Osteen has like three new books out.
Mark Driscoll's said a few thousand new inflammatory things.
So yeah, a lot has changed, and maybe it's time I sat down and actually crafted all this into book format before too much else changes. My biggest hesitation in doing so is that I'm worried about looking back at all of this and seeing my observations/humor/etc. as uninformed or ignorant or outdated, and that's an unnerving thought. Even scarier than all of these churches changing is the sheer knowledge that I too am continuing to grow and change (especially as the job search begins).
I've got a week-long break from classes coming up. Maybe I can work on this a bit then.
Yep, it’s another Mark Driscoll post, but let’s be honest here: every controversial word out of his mouth could be its own post, and I think he’d agree with that statement and laugh.
Pastor Mark Driscoll is quite possibly the most mixed bag in the history of mixed bags, and, if his infamous twitter account is any indication, he knows that and owns it. Still, he has an incredibly engaging preaching and writing style. He’s dynamic. He encourages the arts. He’s in touch with the popular culture and utilizes new social media. He reaches out to untapped audiences. He keeps his sermons very grounded in the Bible. He’s a big believer in the sacraments and has Communion at every service, and that’s all really good stuff. On the other hand, he’s also not too big on women’s rights. His behavior toward the gay community constitutes all-out bullying. His interpretation of masculinity plays to modern stereotypes. He’s chronically sarcastic (which is, admittedly, still funny about 75% of the time). And he seems to see himself as some sort of revolutionary reformer, and that’s the subject I want to address today.
I got kind of steamed back in Seattle when Mark and his crew remarked snidely that Mars Hill was “not your mom’s church.” The statement struck me as arrogant, ignorant, disrespectful, sexist, ageist, and not even that true. Still, that’s his banner, and he waves it proudly. Mark Driscoll has built a Christian empire up there in Seattle founded on the premise of rebelling against the more traditional church of our collective mom’s generation. The strange part is that, the more I think about that concept, the more I realize that Mark and company really aren’t doing anything new by reacting so brashly against the church of their forebears. The truth is that, for at least the past several decades, we’ve been going through the exact same dance with one generation eschewing the ecclesiology of its predecessors. Mars Hill’s show of rebellion against a perceived norm isn’t really innovative in the slightest; it’s actually falling perfectly in line with how the Church has behaved for years. In fact, Mark is doing exactly what the baby boomers (i.e. his mom’s generation) did in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. It’s the cultural cliché of trying so hard to be different that you wind up just reentering the cycle by establishing a new norm, and two decades from now, some new whippersnapper is going to step up to the altar and proudly proclaim that her church is “not Mark Driscoll’s church!” There’s a pattern to these things, and I think it’s something we need to realize and, frankly, I think it’s something we can all laugh at, so let’s explore a little of this current cycle:
Getting into the Mind of the Contemporary Mega:
The Church the Baby Boomers Built
I want to present an approximate and admittedly caricatured sketch of how exactly we got here. A lot of this is based on widely-held generational identities, and I already understand that some baby boomers/gen-x/millennials might read this and loudly exclaim, “That’s not me!” Again, I’m working from approximations and speaking in generalities largely for the sake of brevity (and maybe in the hopes of a laugh or two along the way). On the serious side of things though, my larger purpose is encouraging a dialogue about contemporary megachurches, their successes, their shortcomings, and the lessons we can all learn from the generational struggle for dominance unfolding before our eyes (not to mention its most outspoken crusader up in Seattle). That means we need a hard look at where the current cycle started, so here goes nothing . . .
Post-WWII America is a time period that I find fascinating, but I have to admit that it probably wouldn’t have been my cup of tea. With soldiers returning from the war and starting families, America saw a tremendous Baby Boom of unprecedented proportions. Wartime economy yielded post-war financial prosperity, and the prevalence of GI neighborhoods and the increased education allowed by GI Bills helped foster the relatively new concept of the “nuclear family”-- apron-wearing mom, pipe-smoking dad, and 2.8 kids. Television led to a transition of the family center from the front porch to the living room, previously known as the “parlor,” and is there ever a crazy story behind the parlor. In fact, indulge me for a second . . .
Back in college, I actually took a course called “Meanings of Death” along with several other classes relating to the end of life and afterlife; in fact, had I learned earlier about “synoptic majors” (design-it-yourself curriculums for students seeking specialization), I actually could have graduated from Kenyon with a B.A. in Thanatology (the study of matters pertaining to death). All that to say: I’ve discussed this issue a lot, and of all the ideas presented in those classes, this might be the one that grabbed my attention the most. Pre-1950s, most households had a room known as the “parlor” that was a family gathering/entertaining space, but it also had another purpose: when a family member passed away, the body would be kept in the parlor for visitation and mourning up until the funeral. Does this idea seem slightly morbid to you? Congratulations, you are a victim of the standard discomfort with death that has been instilled in Americans for generations now. With the advent of television, frozen dinners, and increased mortality saliency, the parlor quickly transitioned into being the living room, and this is also around the time in American history that the funeral home industry really took off --soon to be joined by its partner in crime, the retirement community-- all in the name of keeping death out of the family room. Our history’s pretty quirky, ain’t it? You can still find parlors in a lot of older churches, but you don’t really see people describing the rooms in their homes with that word anymore. The movement of death out of the home and the much-needed deglamorizing of warfare may be the two largest contributors to our cultural phobia of death, but that might have to wind up being its own post some other time. Must stay on topic. (Although, in all seriousness, there may be a connection between American mortality saliency and the changing shape of churches in this country, but that sounds like a question for someone with more letters after their name than I currently have.)
Remember the last time we trusted a political leader?
Really, the main reason I’m getting into all this is just to show the circumstances in which the baby boomers grew up. Happy images of the nuclear family gathered around the television set. New interstate systems that enabled travel and vacations and helped facilitate the growth of suburbs around cities. Transitions in views of death and war as slightly more far-off things. Of course, this era would also see the first stirrings of the Civil Rights movement and Women’s Liberation, not to mention the shattering of a generation’s innocence in the ensuing decades with the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam, Kent State, Watergate, etc. Yep, it didn’t take long for the adolescent and young adult baby boomers to see the establishment of their forebears wield its power irresponsibly, but we need to realize that this generational gap also extended to the church in America.
If baby boomers can be defined as rebelling against the establishment of their parents, then perhaps we should keep that mentality in mind when considering trends in American baby boomer megachurches. Willow Creek, Saddleback, and Hill Country all got me thinking about this quite a bit as I observed the commonalities between these churches. Again, keep in mind that I’m speaking very much in generalities and stereotypes, and I wonder if many up-and-coming pastors like Mark Driscoll see this model as a strawman to be beaten down and replaced with “not your mother’s church.”
Common Traits of Baby Boomer Megas
(based on my visits this summer)
Worship Style
The pipe organ has been replaced with the acoustic guitar, and the full choir has been replaced with the soloist or praise team. The vast majority of this music has been influenced by the Hillsong style: simple lyrics, basic chords, heavy repetition, fairly soothing, lots of smiling, big presentation (lighting, close-ups, etc.). A number of factors contributed to the popularizing of this style. First off, the lyrics are a little more innocuous, so they avoid much of the perceived rigidity and inaccessibility of earlier church music, and the substitution of guitar for organ creates a sense of communion with the popular culture. Also, the rise of the internet (specifically YouTube) has made it possible for much of contemporary worship to develop in one direction thanks to the music of Hillsong Church, which might be Australia’s most well-known export after Foster’s beer and the Crocodile Hunter. When Hillsong began publishing videos of their music performances on YouTube, tech-savvy worship leaders around the world began to imitate the style more and more, and it has pretty much become the standard for contemporary baby boomer megas now: simple chords and rhythms, heavy use of soloists and small ensembles, acoustic guitars, smiling, etc. I have very mixed feelings about this entire genre, but I think I’ve ranted about it enough in the past, so maybe we should just move on. I’ll leave this topic with an example of the highly-imitated Hillsong style:
“Seeker Sensitive”
The generation preceding the baby boomers –sometimes called “the greatest generation” by commentators looking to sell coffee table books-- were joiners. Throughout WWII, talk of the “home front” and the glory that surrounded enlisting brought a sense of participation to this generation, and the baby boomers would later eschew that. (For an interesting spin on this, look at how the character of Captain America evolved in comics to appease fans of different generations.) With the “joiner” philosophy falling under suspicion --Watergate, Vietnam, etc.--, many of the baby boomer megas have placed far less emphasis on church membership and encouraged people to remain and explore for a bit before making a commitment. As a result, most services are designed to introduce people to the basics of Christianity (rather than diving into the really deep stuff), and the focus is much more on the individual than on “being a part of something” (i.e. the Church). Willow Creek might be the prime example of this “seeker sensitive” movement and the potential dangers it represents (something which the church has been attempting to address with their Reveal study). On a side note, I think there is also a connection between this movement and the increasingly negative connotation of denominational affiliation-- denominations being seen as a form of establishment and a connection to the old guard. Denominations are an additional label and an even more exclusive clubhouse, and these are not popular ideas with a generation that believes in free thinking and exploration.
Bigger Is Better
Megachurches have always appeared in some form throughout history, so it’s not actually a new phenomenon. Arguably, the first nondenominational megachurch appears in Matthew 14 where Jesus feeds 5,000 people by the Sea of Galilee. All kidding aside though, historic cathedrals housed thousands of worshipers long before the birth of Protestant and Pentecostal megachurches. In more recent history, the tent revivals of the Great Awakening served as more immediate precursors to the massive gatherings that take place today, and the “tent” structures on many megachurches’ campuses harken back to that movement. The United States has long had a few dozen megachurches, but the number of churches with 2,000+ members has taken a rather astronomic turn over the past several decades. It’s hard to pin down a single issue that has led to this phenomenon, and it’s difficult to know whether high-production-value worship and celebrity pastors are the chicken or the egg. Regardless, there’s definitely been a transition: While the touring revivalist Billy Graham seemed to be the definitive pastor of the previous generation, figures like Charles Stanley, Rick Warren, T.D. Jakes, and Joel Osteen (all pastors tied specifically to megachurches) are now the most common names to come up when discussing Christianity with the new neighbors. Bigger churches gain more media attention and more notoriety for pastors, and we can’t really seem to get enough of that nowadays (for better or for worse). Nationally, we pay more attention to the bigger churches, and this has changed a whole generation’s perception of the Church.
To the Suburbs!
As much as I would like to throw around accusations about white flight (which is certainly part of it but not the entire picture), Mark Chaves presents a rationale for church relocation that I find fascinating. With the increasing practicality of the automobile and interstate systems (and white flight-- hah!), the growth of suburbs outside of cities was inevitable. With the differing property values and building regulations, constructing larger facilities on the periphery of urban centers just makes the most economic sense, and the baby boomer megachurches I’ve attended have definitely embodied this. While I have encountered plenty of meetings in high school gymnasiums or in the sanctuaries of older churches or even the occasional converted nightclub, so many of these churches have constructed large multi-building campuses in the suburbs, and while that puts many churches closer to the homes of their members, it also takes them away from the poverty and multi-ethnicity of urban centers. While this can be managed quite effectively with a caring enough group of stewards, I often fear that suburban megachurches run a greater risk of becoming insular and disconnected if they are not intentional about building relationships with other parts of their cities. Some churches do this well. Some don’t. Naming names here wouldn’t help anyone though.
Avoiding Patriarchal Theology
One of my favorite little jokes of history is that, immediately before it became “not your mother’s church,” it was actually “not your father’s church.” In my favorite complimentary caricatures of the 1950s (sit-coms), the trend is that father always knows best. Ward Cleaver had not yet been supplanted by Archie Bunker, who would later be supplanted by Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin. Much of the baby boomer pushback was targeted against “the man” and against the establishment which --in an era prior to the gender equality movements of the 60s, 70s, and 80s-- was heavily patriarchal. Many denominations did not ordain women until the baby boomers started to come of age, and many denominations still do not. One of the things I observed in the baby boomer megas I attended was that, while the lead pastor was invariably male, a slew of female associates were usually on staff and participating actively in worship. Mark Driscoll has commented that the church as it exists today was designed for 40-year-old women, and crass though that comment might be, he’s not completely wrong. (A few blocks away, my Ethics professor just flinched.) Much of the baby boomer megachurch does eschew traditional images of muscular masculinity, which have been in turn glorified by the Mark Driscoll crowd. I’m really hoping this constantly-swinging pendulum will level out within my lifetime, but I’m not counting on it.
Consumer Christianity?
I make this accusation hesitantly since I have encountered so many very deep and spiritual Christians in baby boomer megachurches, but this is one of the main criticisms Mark Driscoll raises, and tragic though it may be, he might be onto something. Many of the baby boomer megas are designed to be “attractional” in nature (as opposed to “missional”). An attractional church is one that sports impressive facilities and programs designed for its members. The church serves the members’ needs, sometimes at the expense of the larger community. While the attractional model is intended to bring people into the church through impressing outsiders and making them desire church membership, the model has become a bit of a dirty word in recent years, with the new buzz word being “missional.” Missional churches have programs intended to meet the needs of the community and call on their members to serve rather than consume. The history and logistics of this model are a little complicated, and this is one of those “will get its own post eventually” subjects that crop up so often as I continue to decompress from the summer.
So yeah, these are just a few characteristics of the baby boomer megachurch, and it is primarily against this style of church that Mark Driscoll et al are rebelling, and speaking of segues . . .
The Emerging Church Publicity Craze
Phyllis Tickle once made the famous statement that the Church experiences a big revolution --her exact words were “rummage sale”-- every 500 years, and the biggest problem that I have with that remark is how seriously people seem to have taken it. When combined with an instant-gratification society, the idea of an impending revolution has made us an expectant and antsy people who seem to look to our own intellectual and exegetical achievements for guidance, and I think this is dangerous. Nowhere has this played out more than in the books and magazines and interviews and conferences surrounding a concept called “the Emerging Church.”
I want to go ahead and make a bold statement: the trend of the Emerging Church that everyone was raving about a few years ago was largely an effort by primarily baby boomer commentators to classify what’s going on in gen-x and millennial churches. It was an attempt to make a natural generational pushback appear to be an organized ecclesial revolution, and frankly, we all wasted a pretty significant amount of time and ink by trying to talk about it in this fashion. I’ve heard a few people in the halls at Duke Div talk snarkily about how the Emerging Church is “a substanceless rebellion that’s falling apart” or “a trendy flash in a pan that died overnight.” No, it wasn’t actually any of those things. It was mostly just bad taxonomy playing out in the Christian publishing industry. Also, it’s still perfectly alive, and we can still learn from the media buzz that surrounded it so unnecessarily. The way I see it, the Emerging Church was never a concrete, monolithic, organized movement (my apologies to Brian McLaren, Mark Driscoll, and anyone else who has ever written a book on this topic); rather, it was a failed attempt to label a generation’s modified approach to Church. With this understanding, it should be clear that the so-called Emerging Church didn’t die; it just grew beyond the confines of its petri dish and wandered away from the people trying to study it.
In the end, all that the Emerging Church publicity craze really proved was that everyone in the Church right now is eager to see what the next big thing will be. Five-hundred years after the Protestant Reformation, we’re all clamoring for the next great revolution, and --in my moments of greatest cynicism-- I suspect that many of us secretly want to lead the next big revolution. Just look at the book titles. Mark Driscoll has his “Reformission.” Shane Claiborne has his “Irresistible Revolution.” Brian McLaren has his “New Kind of Christian.” Don’t get me wrong; I like all of these writers’ ideas and consider them amazing theologians, but I’ve really stopped caring for the language of revolution. I just don’t think that’s how the Gospel works. The Gospel is self-renewing, and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Church has been continually and organically reinventing itself for centuries without books being written on the subject at every turn. When Martin Luther wrote the 95 Theses, he was not looking for a publishing deal or even to lead a revolution; he wanted an open and honest discussion of the strengths and weaknesses of the current system. According to most scholars, Luther didn’t even post the Theses on the Wittenberg Door (like the popular myth states); rather, he probably prepared them to be presented for academic discussion only. To me, the moral of that story is that discontent with the current system and self-initiated change will always become known eventually, and time will tell if a movement really is “the next big thing” for the Church.
In Shane's defense, his book title was intended as irony.
We need passion, not publicity. The Church is too big and diverse a structure for us to keep decreeing what its next great revolution is going to be. That’s not even our job anyway; these things have a way of happening without our predictions, so why bother? Just pursue the call, and change will occur naturally within us. Sure, the churches in America have problems that need attention, but we should be prayerfully considering this stuff on the ground and in the trenches rather than keeping our eyes turned constantly to the printed page to tell us what is happening in the world around us. I’m not discouraging the reading or writing of these books, but come on, can we please keep our local contexts in mind? Why read about the Emerging Church when you could just befriend someone under 30 and ask what that person’s ideal church setting looks like? Why read about the Emerging Church when you could turn to the Bible and see that the prophets, gospels, and epistles have been saying this stuff all along? Voluntary poverty and intentional community were ideas that the early Christians had way before Shane Claiborne (something he will happily tell you himself), and even Mark Driscoll acknowledges that the missional church was around way before his time; all Mark’s ideas came from Paul (for better or for worse).
What I’m getting at is that the Church moves in cycles, and the Emerging Church was a misidentification of a cycle as a revolution. So many people get caught up thinking that they’re going to be part of the next big thing when the real next big thing began roughly 2,000 years ago on a cross. So with that in mind, let’s talk about the next part of the cycle, the part that Mark Driscoll says isn’t our mothers’.
Whippersnappers
When I walked into Austin Stone Community Church’s main campus and suddenly felt old --and, for the record, I’m 24--, I knew that I should take very careful notes. What I saw around me was a sea of teenagers and twenty-somethings embracing a sense of communal effervescence and becoming “a part of something” (a phrase that I put in quotation marks since I think it’s being marketed to this generation as a way to rebel against their more anti-joining predecessors). The heavy drums and ethereal electric guitars very much imitated popular music and pushed back on the traditional contemporary music of Hillsong and the like. Don’t even get me started on the fashion sense there; I was overdressed in my untucked dress shirt and jeans. The majority of those present sported jeans and simple t-shirts, many of which even bore images that commented on religion or culture or both.
Mars Hill of Seattle offered something similar: a room full of people in their twenties and thirties, many of them with very young children. The only man over forty I encountered was there to see his daughter play cello with the band’s string section. The music was cutting edge. The lighting was state of the art. The building aesthetic was industrial. Everything had a new and jagged feel to it, as if God had just reached down and punched the church out from the ground around it. Out with the old, in with the new. They’re not into “tradition” or “religion” . . . except Communion; they’re keeping that one around.
Mosaic was cool. Really cool. You could even pick up earplugs at the door to prepare for the ultra-loud music (because they’re cool, but safety first). The room was black. Black is the color of awesome. The pastor had a headset microphone and a trendy haircut that said, “I’m cool. I know Jesus. I work at a church, but you’d never guess it by how I dress, only by my demeanor. That’s because this church is different. This is a church where the old rules don’t apply.”
At New Life, they’re so cool that they’ve supplemented their awesome music with words that your mom’s church doesn’t even say anymore (words that got nixed for being too “traditional”). New Life is just that cool, but don’t ask about their history.
Mars Hill of Grand Rapids is so cool they don’t even need to talk about it. Their church meets in an old mall with no signage visible from the street. The eyes of the world are on Mars Hill now as its controversial founding pastor steps aside to focus on speaking tours and continuing to respond to a call to global mission. He’s cool. He wears black and has iconic glasses.
Then there’s Ecclesia. Man, Ecclesia is so cool, they don’t even need to tell you how cool they are. They’re just that cool.
Please note that these are all worship experiences that I enjoyed, and I really found myself feeling at home in these churches. These are people of my own age group, and they’re largely people who share my interpretations of Christianity, but they’re also people that are really easy to make fun of because, let’s face it, we’re all really trendy and conscious of our generational identity. I can see how all of these churches might get clustered together by a casual observer into “the Emerging Church,” but I think that such observers are missing the fact that this is just how culture progresses, and the Church (for better or for worse) accompanies it. It’s not that we’re experiencing some great revolution in the Church that’s going to change everything and usher in the Kingdom next Thursday. All that’s happening is that a new generation is gradually accepting the reins from the baby boomers, and that’s why Mark Driscoll is completely incorrect by decreeing that Mars Hill is “not your mother’s church.” As much as we want to deny it, by worshiping Christ and seeking to do God’s will, we are inheriting the Church of our forebears, all the way from Peter and Paul to Rob Bell and Shane Claiborne and Mark Driscoll. The contemporary mega model may have its flaws, and Mark Driscoll isn’t entirely out of line by reacting harshly to it, but we need to understand that all of these churches are part of our genetic makeup as Christians. The Church is steadily evolving now, just as it has been evolving for centuries under God’s watchful care. These natural generational cycles may look like revolutions at first (especially when they’re heavily publicized), but the truth of the matter is that they’re just part of a bigger picture that we’re still coming to understand. My friend Ben Richards had the best response to all this, and I think his words are the best way I could close this piece:
Of course it’s my mother’s church. It’s also my father’s church, my brother’s church, and my sister’s church. It’s the church of the person on the street corner and the person in the boardroom. It’s the church of men and women, Jew and Greek, slave and free. It is everyone’s church. It’s my church. It’s your church. It’ll be our children’s church. And I know all this because it’s God’s church.
Erin just showed me a fascinating link, so I'm sharing it here and sending it out to a couple of my classes as well. It's not the most sophisticated video game ever, but this website runs a simulation for living unemployed on the bare minimum (as well as providing resources about Urban Ministries in Durham). Give it a look!
I know this image is a little dated (as it was a response to a fairly old comment by Bill O'Reilly nearly a year ago), but it popped up on a friend's facebook, and I couldn't resist reposting it here:
When Stephen Colbert first made that statement, it showed up all over divinity students' facebook pages for a good solid month, and the video definitely made an appearance on my profile as well. I think it's interesting that programs like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report often tend to give a more sympathetic read to --for lack of a better phrase-- "social justice Christianity" than other more traditional forms of media. Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are both a bit on the liberal side, but the work of satire means that they are both continually making fun of all the little absurdities in today's popular and political culture, be they liberal or conservative; this is why I'll watch Daily Show/Colbert Report but never the feeding frenzies on MSNBC and Fox News-- I like my news to make light of everyone, not just the party with which the commentator disagrees. In fact, I remember a year ago when my roommate made the observation, "You know, we should really be watching more news." He then grabbed the remote and flipped it to Comedy Central to catch the last few minutes of Colbert.
Of course, Stephen Colbert's religious leanings (Roman Catholic) make for some fascinating commentary on current issues in Christianity. Stephen's been called a prophet by many, and given my definition of a prophet (one who speaks words of often-bitter and corrective truth to people who need to hear them, frequently without the words of comfort that would fall more under the "pastoral" heading), I'm inclined to agree. I wish we had more voices out there like Stephen's, and not just because I get a kick out of satire. His observations force us to take a hard look at ourselves, and I think it's a hard look that the churches in America need. Of course, this is precisely what the whole Emerging Church movement tried to do, but that doesn't seem to be going so well (which will be a post for another day).
This one was tough. As a white, upper middle class, Cooperative Baptist boy from East Memphis, I was quite out of my element, and there were a few things that didn't quite resonate right with me (particularly in the areas of requests for money and public crying, but more on those later). In spite of these things, it was a powerful experience and a fitting way to wrap up my long journey to ordination. I experienced an incredible time of worship and a riveting sermon, all of which left me with a lot on which to reflect. As always, here's the table of contents:
Well, I guess that about wraps up this portion of the project. What a long, strange trip it's been. I've still got a few articles that I'm working on here and there that may find their way onto this blog, but for now, well . . . I guess I'm done.
This one’s needed to gestate for a while. A long while. Here’s why:
The other day, my friend Kiki preached in the chapel at Duke Divinity to provide words of wisdom and reassurance to the incoming first year class. As expected, it was an amazing message, and I found myself getting into it. Along with several peers, I offered choruses of amens and various other signs of verbal affirmation throughout the sermon. At the end of the message, we applauded, and many of us even stood as an extra sign of support and celebration, and all of this seemed completely appropriate to me. The amens and applause were affirmations of the gifts that God has given Kiki and signs of agreement with her message, a reassurance from members of that community that God was speaking a truth through her words. There’s something holy and wonderful about being able to provide that sort of blessed conversation in worship, and I like it, but later on in the day, I heard an incoming first year student make a comment:
“That sermon was amazing, but I think it’s rude for people to talk in church.”
I was assisting with first year orientation at the time and had other responsibilities, so I never got to initiate a serious conversation with the student. Still, the incident got me thinking: I actually learned a lot about that student’s background from his one comment. I learned that he comes from a tradition where talkback is not encouraged or perhaps misunderstood, and I learned that he has not yet been exposed to it regularly enough to develop an understanding of it as affirmation and enthusiasm (rather than the rudeness he perceived). I could feel an uncertainty in him about this new phenomenon, perhaps tinged with additional anxiousness due to his new environment in the divinity school. Perhaps there was even a subconscious desire to cling to his upbringing a little since he had been exposed to so many new things that day or an eagerness to appear critical and contemplative so as to impress peers who might be listening. All of this is information I will need to keep in mind if I ever get the chance to bump into him again and discuss the issue with him (something which I hope will happen-- assuming I can even pick him out again from the sea of new faces I encountered during orientation). More than anything though, his comment helped reaffirm something that Erin and I discussed at great length after my visit to the Potter’s House:
When we find ourselves made uncomfortable by something in worship, that experience can tell us a lot more about ourselves than about the people worshiping around us. When something makes us uncomfortable, it’s a chance to explore the factors in our own backgrounds that have influenced our preferences in worship and to reflect on how this new worship experience can potentially change our existing biases and expectations. For example, when a singer at Church of the Resurrection seemed like he was showboating a little too much, I felt uncomfortable, and it gave me a chance to explore my own history with the thorny issue of performance in worship. When the associate pastor at Mars Hill in Seattle told the congregation right upfront how much money they needed and asked that the congregation pray for a “surprise blessing” in the weeks to come, it offended me, but it also made me reflect on why it is that I’m so uneasy talking about money matters in church (especially since it’s actually one of the most discussed topics in the Bible). Why is Joel Osteen’s prosperity theology so bothersome to me? Why am I okay with some people crying in church but not others? Why do “smiley white worship leaders” of the Chris Tomlin/Matt Redman ilk get under my skin so much? Why am I so utterly particular about how people talk about disenfranchised groups, especially the homeless? Why do I judge a church more harshly when I don’t see women leading worship? Why am I so averse to affluent suburban settings?
These are just a handful of the many issues that I’ve had to confront thanks to worshiping in new and different environments all summer. I quickly discovered that some of these questions were rooted in deep theological beliefs, but some were just connected to unfounded biases that needed to be discarded. Worshiping in different spaces helped me realign my priorities a bit, and it modified my understanding of so many issues facing the Church. Had I not had this experience this summer, there are many issues now occupying the center of my attention that I might not have given a second thought before. So many questions came up this summer that I know will ultimately make me a better and more discerning pastor, and I’m hoping to spend the next few years developing a curriculum to help other students have similar experiences, but that might have to be its own post some other time. In short, I feel like I have different eyes and ears now, and I look forward to the many conversations in the months and years to come as I continue to reflect on this summer.
Why am I saying all of this here at the outset? Well, Potter’s House was a very special and different experience for me. I was very much out of my element (probably more so than at any other church this summer), and there were many components of the service that I’m still meditating over. Much of this comes from the simple fact that I was a white, middle class, Cooperative Baptist kid from East Memphis worshiping in a predominantly black, socioeconomically diverse, nondenominational megachurch in the heart of Texas. Yep, I wasn’t exactly your typical Potter’s House attendee, but as I look around that room one more time in my memories, I’m still not sure there really is a “typical” Potter’s House attendee. Some people were dressed to the nines; others were in t-shirts and jeans. There was a wide age range, and even though there was a vast black majority, there was still great racial diversity in the room. I guess I’ll get into more of that later though. I just wanted to say at the beginning: I think I learned more about myself than about the church, but I think there’s really nothing wrong with that.
Let’s get started . . .
The Last Sunday Morning on the Road
Metroplex (for scale)
Three alarm clocks. That’s how little I trust myself to get out of bed these days. I set three different alarm clocks. Thankfully, the first two wound up being sufficient, and I was showered and out the door bright and early. You see, Potter’s House only has two weekly services (Sunday morning and Wednesday evening), and the Sunday service starts at 9AM-- not a big deal except for the fact that I was staying clear on the other side of the Dallas Metroplex, and that’s a pretty sizable distance to cover. In the old Transformers cartoons, I remember that the biggest Autobot they had was named “Metroplex,” and he could transform from an entire city into a giant, fighting robot. Driving across that massive urban sprawl made me realize what an apt name it was.
Upon arriving at The Potter’s House, I was ushered to an open parking space by no less than a dozen parking attendants, all clad in reflective neon vests and sweating in the already-overpowering Dallas heat. They were all enthusiastic and thanked me and said, “Bless you!” as I got out of my car and headed across the parking lot toward the building. Parking at Potter’s House is a slick and efficient operation, with two parking lots with a pedestrian overpass in between them, police officers directing traffic, cones blocking off lanes of the street, and an almost comically large number of parking attendants directing cars into spaces. As all the parking volunteers were fairly young (early 20s or even late teens), I wondered if working at Potter’s House was part of a youth service program of some kind or maybe even an aspect of the church’s T.O.R.I. program (Texas Offenders Reentry Initiative). The attendants were a little too busy for me to ask though, so I just headed toward the building. I was surprised to find the parking lot already quite full even though it was still thirty minutes until the start of the service.
The Potter’s House building is an impressive structure visible from the highway, but like so many of the megachurches, it looks a little more like a convention center than a church. A cross extends upward from the white and gray façade, on which the church name appears in large declaratory letters in a rather standard gold font. The building’s exterior is highly angular, and a number of tour buses rested under the slightly upturned awning. There was also an ambulance at the ready, and I wasn’t really sure what to make of that going in. Did people regularly pass out during the famously long services here? Reba Collins did warn me back at Willow Creek that I would be spending quite a bit of time here. Should I have made greater efforts to eat a quick breakfast? I moved toward the large glass doors.
A well-dressed older middle aged woman at the door greeted me and said, “I hope you brought your dancing shoes!” Sadly, my dancing shoes were still in a box in my closet in Durham, but I hoped my casual loafers would be equally acceptable. As I continued through the bustling foyer, a tall man who was dressed in black and looked to be about thirty walked up to me and told me, “Sir, I’m going to need to see what’s in your bag.” I was a little surprised since I hadn’t been searched at any of the other churches. Hell, ever since I shaved my beard and went back to short hair, even airports leave me alone. I didn’t like the sense of distrust, but I complied, showing him my bag’s contents: hat, notebook, camera, pen, glasses. The man was satisfied and moved on, and I was left to stand there wondering what that was about. I guess Potter’s House has had some incidents in the past, and maybe I looked suspicious as a lone white male going into a famous predominantly-black megachurch. For a split second there, this incident made me appreciate the suspicion with which black folks are sometimes treated in a predominantly-white atmosphere. This was the first of many times that I would wish I had brought a black friend along with me to show me the ropes and make me look less conspicuous. Actually, you know what? I think it’s time for a quick italicized public service announcement:
---ATTENTION---
As much as we want to argue to the contrary, and as unsettling as this reality sometimes is (especially given the whole “one body” thing stressed throughout the Epistles), black churches and white churches are very, very different cultural entities. Both have unique customs and histories, and both have their problems of inaccessibility to outsiders (particularly outsiders of other races). Just saying “We’re all Christians” sort of oversimplifies the state of things and ignores some highly significant issues of cultural identity. While we all worship the same God and the same Savior, black Christians and white Christians each have to adapt to a new set of norms and taboos when worshiping in each other’s churches (How much do we talk back to the sermon? What are people’s proper titles? How significant is this particular service or ritual? etc.). We are learning to worship together, but it can still be kind of awkward sometimes, and we need to go ahead and own up to that and be patient with each other when some aspects of worship seem confusing. We need to ask questions of each other in honesty and humility when something doesn’t make sense, and we need to keep in mind that, when trying to bridge the gap, a little confusion is inevitable. I’ve done my best to respect the traditions of Potter’s House in discussing my time there (even going so far as to use people’s titles rather than my preferred default of first names). Still, there were a few things here and there that kind of made me scratch my head. Please be patient with me for the things in this service that I have surely misinterpreted or misunderstood. As stated earlier, many of them will reflect more on me and my background than on my fellow worshipers. Okay, enough of my white guilt. Back to the post . . .
Uniformed ushers were stationed in each section of seating, directing people to open seats as we entered. Each usher was wearing black pants or a floor-length skirt and a blue dress shirt with the Potter’s House logo emblazoned on it. Like the parking attendants, these ushers were very friendly, but they clearly meant business. In my Free Church Worship class last year, I had several classmates who grew up in traditionally black churches, and they had briefed me a bit on how being an usher is a very significant thing, complete with special training and even its own holiday of sorts (“Usher Anniversary”). I didn’t really get it then, but seeing these ushers in action made me appreciate the station a bit more, and I found myself feeling just a bit envious of the formal distribution of responsibility among the ushers at Potter’s House. At the church where I grew up, the ushers didn’t even ush all that much. All they did was hand out bulletins at the door and maybe pass the offering plates if we were short on deacons that morning. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that being an usher was kind of treated as grunt work-- not a position to be celebrated. Hmm . . . I kind of like that inversion: taking a seemingly grunt job and making it a position of honor. There might be kind of a Christly role reversal at work there. Before I could muse on this for too long, I realized that I still needed to take notes on the sanctuary around me.
It was amazing how full that big room already was, especially since so many of the other churches I’ve attended didn’t even opened up their sanctuaries/auditoriums/whatever until just ten or fifteen minutes before the service. At 8:30, the place was at least half-full, and every seat on the ground level was filled by the start of the service at 9:00. By about an hour into the service, I don’t think there was an open seat in the room, but I noticed on my way in that, like Saddleback, Potter’s House has overflow seating in the foyer, so I’m sure people arriving later still got to listen to the sermon, even if it was just on a screen outside the sanctuary. The room itself was very impressive and rather traditionally adorned by comparison to some of the other megas. Contemporary gospel music piped in as we awaited the start of the service. The stage was covered with velvety blue curtains with a cross projected onto them, and standing directly in front of these was a wide pulpit with pots and plants underneath. Two large screens rested on either side of the stage, and they bore the Potter’s House logo. Like at Lakewood, I noticed a camera crane over on the left side of the sanctuary, perfectly positioned to provide audience close-ups and sweeping pans of the whole room. Also like at Lakewood, the presence of this crane kind of unnerved me and reminded me that this church has its commercial component as well. There’s just something about camera cranes; they make me uneasy, but I’m also strangely fascinated by them. Camera cranes are kind of like lava lamps; I don’t actually find much purpose in them, but you just can’t not watch them. They’re entrancing.
Though the room was full of pews, each pew was lined with comfortable individual seat cushions, and small, white buckets rested in the aisles next to each pew, ready to be passed when the time came for the offertory. All around me, conversations were taking place, and people were greeting each other and hugging one another like old friends. I was a little amused when a family walked in with several girls in matching dresses and hats-- made me think of Erin’s stories of the meticulously matched apparel from her childhood. For the most part, people were attired in all variety of clothing, running the full range from suits and formal dresses to shorts and t-shirts, and this was a welcome sight for me since the formal-looking ushers had me feeling very underdressed at first. With my usual untucked dress shirt and jeans, my attire seemed to be almost exactly middle of the road or maybe just a hair casual for the environment. I also observed that there was a very wide age range here, and the age distribution seemed to be fairly even, with the highest concentration probably being adults in their 40s and 50s but also with a significant young adult population as well-- quite a few young families.
I have to admit that I was in one of my less social moods, so I was more interested in observation than conversation that morning. After all, I had only just finished the Houston material the day before, and I was still wiped out from that beast of a project. Additionally, I knew that I would be driving eight hours to Memphis the next day, and I was also feeling kind of tired in general, so I just didn’t really feel like talking to people that much. This church marked the culmination of my journey. I would be getting ordained at the next destination, and I would be heading back to North Carolina from there. With all that coming up, I guess I just wanted to take a break and check out mentally for a bit rather than questioning every person I saw, and the woman sitting next to me in the pew was happy to allow this. She was middle aged and well dressed, and she had brought her mother with her that morning, positioning the older woman on her other side. This middle aged woman didn’t say a word to me throughout the entire time we were there . . . well, except for when Bishop Jakes told us to say something to our neighbor, but I’m not sure how you count that in terms of hospitality. She also elbowed me sharply in the side whenever Bishop Jakes told us to reach out and touch a neighbor, and I’m not sure you can really count that either. Other than the moments where she was specifically instructed to do so, this woman did not so much as make eye contact with me. Her mother, on the other hand, was quite friendly even though she seemed to be getting a bit senile. In the span of five minutes, I was asked twice, “My, isn’t it cold in here? Does it feel cold to you?” each time as if it were a revelation to her. I couldn’t help but smile at her slight absentmindedness as we talked, and I assured her that we were probably seated under a vent and that it would warm up as more people came into the sanctuary and moved around a bit. I always appreciate a friendly personality, even if that individual is starting to struggle a bit with memory.
