Mega-Churches Runneth Over With Vast Choices

They number no more than 400 out of an estimated 400,000 churches in this country. But these independent, entrepreneurial congregations, often called mega-churches because of their large memberships and creative approaches to spreading Christianity, are redefining the religious landscape of America.

That’s the conclusion of Charles Trueheart in the August issue of The Atlantic Monthly. He spent the past year visiting several mega-churches, talking with members and ministers to see what the attraction is.

Trueheart, a Washington Post reporter, returned from his travels with a new and healthy respect for mega-church efforts and with a warning to those who simply dismiss these churches as ecclesiastical aberrations: Before your church comes to resemble a mausoleum more than a house of worship, consider the successes of these congregations.

For example, at Mariners Church in Newport Beach, Calif., Trueheart discovered an inconspicuous sanctuary (not even a suggestion of a spire) with acres of parking. Inside, an orchestra played upbeat soft rock as members and friends chatted.

A cappuccino cart with a parasol stood to one side. Tables listed seminars available on topics such as 12-step recovery (drugs, alcohol, abuse), parents of adolescents, grief support, “discovering divorce dynamics,” and Generation X activities.

To encourage change among more and more people turned off by organized religion, mega-churches take careful and calculated steps:

They avoid denominational labels. (Many are not denominationally related.) They provide multimedia worship services (removing the “old-church European atmospherics” of which many baby boomers are apparently suspicious). And they offer choices, lots of choices, for those who enter their doors.

Clearly, folks are streaming in.

At Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Ill., more than 15,000 people attend a worship service every weekend. Are church leaders satisfied with their apparent success? “There are 2 million people within a one-hour drive of this place,” said Bill Hybels, pastor of the church. “In business parlance, we’ve got 2 percent of market share. We’ve got a long way to go.”

What’s also clear is that mega-church leaders are savvy students of the culture, using the language of the marketplace (customers, demographic target market, market share) and stressing service opportunities for those who attend, particularly the huge baby boomer population.

Are their efforts working?

“The average mega-church person,” writes Trueheart, “no matter how intense his or her love of God, is a more buttoned-up, socially inhibited person - an average American, that is.”

Trueheart ends his study of mega-churches by recounting a phone conversation he had with Loren Mead, church consultant for the Alban Institute, an ecumenical think tank. Like Trueheart, Mead said he sees many positive elements in mega-churches, including the contemporary music in the services, though he doubted whether it would endure - too much like the Top 40.

Trueheart revealed his Episcopal Church leanings, declaring that he preferred “singing great lungfuls of old hymns on Sunday morning and kneeling for that transcendent moment of grace at the Communion rail.”

Yet, both men realize there is danger in feeling comfortable with the familiar - a message that many of us in traditional churches should heed.

Mead warns that “we’re speaking a foreign language to younger people,” and that that could portend the end of the traditional church as we know it.

xxxx