> "You can just sort of wander in and be anonymous and worship there and be a spectator for as long as you want," he says. "But there's an almost equal number of people who are going out the back door because they didn't find their place."
I know a _lot_ of people who follow that first sentiment. In a smaller church there's so much to be done that you inevitably get sucked into helping the church just to survive, which means getting sucked into the politics of a small congregation.
For people who just want to show up and go to church and enjoy being at church, I can see why a large congregation would be a popular choice, and I know several people who attend them for exactly that reason.
I wonder the degree to which the dominance of the internet has contributed to this trend.
People are more and more accustomed to low-stakes anonymous social interaction with huge numbers of faceless people. These interactions feel simultaneously safer and far more stimulating than small communities.
Megachurches seem to have a similar appeal—you're not under any obligation to maintain a relationship, and at the same time the energy given off by thousands of people in one place probably feels more intensely spiritual for some people than can be had in a small congregation.
It’s easy to get in a mindset that the church isn’t something I’m a part of, but something that’s a service to be consumed and subscribed to. If I’m not happy with the “content” I find a different service. This is absolutely the wrong mentality but it’s hard to fight.
It’s interesting how wildly the “politics” of a small congregation can vary. I’ve been a part of a number of small/medium congregations and some have been very great and wholesome experiences where I felt uplifted and grateful to serve alongside others. And others have been terrible, gossipy and judgemental/racist/sexist/etc… Mind you these were all congregations of the same denomination in the same general region of the US. I truly wonder what makes the difference. I suspect the leadership of these congregations really set the precedent for what their congregation will act like.
> I know a _lot_ of people who follow that first sentiment. In a smaller church there's so much to be done that you inevitably get sucked into helping the church just to survive, which means getting sucked into the politics of a small congregation.
I recently had a conversation with a pastor and we talked about this. It also has to do with service size, aka venue size. The requirements to man a service are something like
- Sermon creation: 1+ pastor/week
- Creative enhancements: 1-3 people/week
- Sermon delivery: 1 pastor/2-3 services
- Live music: 5-10 people/2-3 services
- Sound: 1-2 people/2 services
- Lights: 1-2 people/2 services
- Kids: 1 person/10(?) kids/~1 service
- Front door hosts: 1 person/100(?) attendees/1 service
Some requirements scale per week, some scale per service, some per attendee. But with more services and larger venues you can save a lot in labor requirements.
That's definitely a big part of it. At the same time, different people have different ideas of what that means. For many, being directly involved in the affairs and the machinery of the church is just too much -- they'd rather make new friends, go to bible study sessions, or have fun barbecues and stuff like the article mentions.
Don't get me wrong -- lots of people find their community through volunteering -- it's just that it can get to be a lot.
It should be. (You can't obey all those commands that contain the words "one another" in isolation.)
But not everyone who walks in the door is looking for that. For at least some of the people, the purpose is just to worship. (And for those who are there for community, well, there are also commands to worship...)
The issue is being able to choose your degree of involvement. I know people who like to attend church but won't if their only choice is a small one, because of the social demands made of them in a small group.
As an introvert, I was actually happier at a large university than I would have been at a smaller college, because I had more control over the degree to which I had to interact with other people. If I didn't really want to deal with people, I could sit in a busy space and everyone was just anonymous and coexisting.
My family has gone to some smaller churches and a few bigger ones. We're currently at a bigger one and have been for quite a while.
We like the quality of the preaching and the music. The smaller churches were better at some hands-on aspects, but it's hard for them to have the musicians (and the bench depth) that more population brings.
I'm waiting for people to figure out you can actually do quite a bit of good in a church. Food drives, clothing give-aways, etc. (Our church has a 'cars ministry' where we give away oil changes to needy families and sometimes give away donated cars.)
It's tough to compete with Reddit and the like, where people can get a short-term feel of 'doing good' from behind a keyboard. But I don't think that's as 'real'. I'm hoping in time we'll see more people get excited about 'doing' in a hands-on manner.
I have very negative feelings about most organized religion but I have to say the community aspect is something I hate throwing out with the bathwater. I have pretty much fully replaced it with a good group of friends that gets together a minimum of once a week for a potluck. In a lot of ways it's better: less drama, no internal-politics, etc and it ticks all the boxes for me but I can imagine if I had kids I'd feel that they weren't getting the same experience I had growing up w.r.t. kids/friends their age (not that they'd need to have the same experience as me and I'd look for other outlets for friends/peers for them).
In the meantime my friend group half-jokes about buying some land and all living on it together (really, I think with the right prompting/circumstances we'd do it), a commune if you will. We have also joked about starting our own "religion" for tax purposes. I wonder if this is how some cults start? I think a lot of people in my generation yearn for this kind connection/community/closeness since church is a non-starter (at least for people I associate with).
Don’t worry, capital c Cults require some more intense personality traits and manipulative/abusive practices, preying on those in some kind of need. Usually accompanied by a strong whiff of narcissism :)
> "Church is fun"... Church barbecues, pizza and movie nights are all part of the mix. On Sundays, "it's loud. ... it's casual. People can wear flip-flops and drink coffee,"
Bingo! Religion has always been primarily about community. The shared morals and traditions are in service to making a stronger community. Its a book club on steroids. If your church is boring and asocial, nobody will want to attend.
My (good!) experience is that churches are very much about community, however, I believe there is an interesting point to consider about them as institutions of control. Moreso in the context of European history, but also perhaps in the context of megachurches as described in this article. Friedrich Nietzche proposed that Christianity instills "slave morality" which redefined "good" as altruistic, patient, meek, humble, etc. and "evil" as greedy, violent, jealous, etc. Prior to Christianity, Nietzche cites that European "human morality" equated "good" with power, ambition, wealth, etc. and "bad" with weakness, apathy, poverty, etc. While it's true that Nietzche is a flawed character, I'd say it's worthwhile to examine how these competing moral codes are present within Christianity. Historically, one may see the Catholic church, or the Church of England, as instilling the "slave morality" while their leaders enjoy the base morality for themselves. Consider the Spanish inquisition, the Salem Witch Trials, or perhaps even Manifest Destiny - which moral code was primarily practiced by those who led these, and which moral code was primarily practiced by those who supported them? I believe the same cognitive dissonance is at play with these megachurches. Just something to consider, not critiquing Christianity in theory, just how things have/are playing out. It's also perfectly reasonable as a Christian to critique "human morality" as the original sin which Christian morality attempts to solve.
>> The shared morals and traditions are in service to making a stronger community.
For a great many it is also about exclusion, a purification of that community. When I lived in the US I attended several community events (BBQs, sports days and such) with friends who were "in" a local church. It was all fun until someone got wind of the new guy with a non-local accent. Then I would be set upon by people asking probing questions to nail down my religious status, questions for which there are never good answers. Once I left early as my outsider status was evidently disruptive (a "leader" was loudly trying to convert me.) I also went to a big Mormon BBQ event which was, unexpectedly, 100% different. They just accepted the presence of an outsider and didn't feel the need to even bring it up. But for some reason they did keep offering me coffee.
The fun is the hook, but the congregants are still fish. David French recently wrote an article about how right-wingers - and particularly evangelicals - are blind to the way their religious and political institutions (with too little separation between them) spread hate and lies. What they see is the bonds of fun and love among their own kind, with churches often the center of that. It's hard to think of fun, likeable people doing bad things, so they just don't.
In that context, the rise of megachurches is a Very Bad Thing. In my experience - being from a family with multiple generations of missionaries and pastors in that tradition - these types of unaffiliated churches often tend toward cults of personality, spreading a message that is at best oblivious to the concerns of anyone outside their extremely homogeneous congregations. True hate from the pulpit is rare, but fear of others and belief in literal devils trying to drive an anti-faith agenda are quite common. People thinking one's own community is special or blessed usually goes hand in hand with an implication that The Other is defective or diabolical. While not harmful in itself, it's a stepping stone to some pretty bad places.
It's a common error to think that repressive regimes are unstintingly serious. In fact, the worst elements can never have their way without the support of a broader community, which they often nurture through recreation, religion, etc. "Church is fun" can be a good thing, but it doesn't mean those "fun" churches' effect on the body politic is a good one.
Community existed long before religion. I'd guess it's more an extention of the brain trying to explain unexpected phenomenon, and grifters learning to exploit that. The community aspects are how the grift is marketed.
[citation needed]. Religion is as old as civilization, all the way back to Mesopotamia.
I think you're right that it stems from a need to explain the unknown, which is why with modern science we have atheism on the rise. But I don't think your pessimism is entirely warranted. A church hosting a free BBQ is not "grifting"
Religion or strong ideology is the only way to expand your community at a faster rate than women can make children. If tribes competed with each other for territory or power, they were probably already at maximum fertility, and needed other methods to get more manpower faster.
I don't think you are required to believe to attend. I've had a few conversations with clergy and I'm pretty sure they aren't sure they believe themselves. What they do have in abundance is faith.
Then there's nothing to tie that community together and it eventually gets deprioritized or simply subsumed into the general culture.
Look at "creedless" denominations over time to see how it plays out. There's no specific belief you need to hold to be a quaker for example, and as a result some quaker practices have been absorbed into other protestant churches while quakerism itself is almost dead.
That's called a social club. Big classics are the fraternal orders, like the Masons and Oddfellows, but there are plenty of others. I can assure you, they don't get more attendees.
The first church mentioned has a fancy website https://liquidchurch.com/ and mobile app with content for all ages.
I was worried about the warping this will have on the political landscape, with such a centralized institution shaping morality, but from a brief tour of their website they do seem non political on the surface.
Will mega churches increase accountability as more eyeballs critique the leadership, while smaller, more politically diverse churches get starved out? Or with more power will they become more corrupt?
I had read an article previously about how American churches, needing more attendees, have become more political to pull in the numbers. I remember a quote saying something along the lines of the pastor "gets them for an hour a week, and talk radio gets them for the rest of the week." and so therefore the church begins to mimik the style and topics of talk radio. Will megachurches pull in so much money they don't need to worry about competing and won't further the polarization of the people?
My pet theory is that the decline of churches has less to do with the secularization of culture and more to do with the fact that they're not very entertaining or engaging relative to whatever else you could be doing on your weekend.
The "engagingness" of entertainment has been increasing in absolute terms for a while now, and it really picked up in the 20th century. Meanwhile, the "engagingness" of mainstream religion has not kept pace. It is perhaps indicative that those groups of people best able to keep devout religious practices also typically shun all the rest of consumer entertainment.
In that frame, megachurches represent an evolution to survive this higher-engagement ecosystem. To compete, church must be more fun, which in this case means turning into a giant pep-rally/rock concert.
> My pet theory is that the decline of churches has less to do with the secularization of culture and more to do with the fact that they're not very entertaining or engaging relative to whatever else you could be doing on your weekend.
The (excellent) book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman made a similar point. Basically, the characteristics of communication mediums have a strong influence on the content (e.g. television has to entertain), and as certain mediums get popular, they set up corrosive expectations (e.g. learning has to be fun, so people reject learning things that may be important and valuable but aren't entertaining).
There's some interesting team/org organizational dynamics going on in churches in the U.S.
From the outside, it appears that these megachurches are offering sort of an AWS for religion, facilitating small-group worship that happens in all kinds of ways. So you get the Agile Open Spaces idea, where folks can self-select in-or-out and topics to dive into, combined with the small group worship concept.
That's just a guess. I don't do churches. But the concept of an overall "thing" that people align to, then a very large group of people in another kind of "thing", and finally some sort of small-scale high-value interaction (for all three levels) is fascinating and not, in my opinion, unique to religion.
The one experience I had in this vein makes the term a misnomer. Most of this ilk--I infer--are really like a pomegranate. Many smaller groups with leaders that the megachurch acts as an umbrella over. The megachurch will vector newer visitors to pick one off the menu and attach for the social connectedness that we all need but rarely vocalize.
My (relatively puny) outfit has been a user of https://www.planningcenter.com/ for a couple of years, and I think that it has much traction amongst larger ones.
When I traveled my first time abroad I was astonished at how big some churches are in other countries both in congregation and building size.
At the end of the day they operate the same way a business does, once you scale your product your org becomes bigger and cluttered, therefore some people prefer a more "customized" religious experience and end up abandoning these megachurches
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I know a _lot_ of people who follow that first sentiment. In a smaller church there's so much to be done that you inevitably get sucked into helping the church just to survive, which means getting sucked into the politics of a small congregation.
For people who just want to show up and go to church and enjoy being at church, I can see why a large congregation would be a popular choice, and I know several people who attend them for exactly that reason.
People are more and more accustomed to low-stakes anonymous social interaction with huge numbers of faceless people. These interactions feel simultaneously safer and far more stimulating than small communities.
Megachurches seem to have a similar appeal—you're not under any obligation to maintain a relationship, and at the same time the energy given off by thousands of people in one place probably feels more intensely spiritual for some people than can be had in a small congregation.
Same with companies.
I recently had a conversation with a pastor and we talked about this. It also has to do with service size, aka venue size. The requirements to man a service are something like
- Sermon creation: 1+ pastor/week
- Creative enhancements: 1-3 people/week
- Sermon delivery: 1 pastor/2-3 services
- Live music: 5-10 people/2-3 services
- Sound: 1-2 people/2 services
- Lights: 1-2 people/2 services
- Kids: 1 person/10(?) kids/~1 service
- Front door hosts: 1 person/100(?) attendees/1 service
Some requirements scale per week, some scale per service, some per attendee. But with more services and larger venues you can save a lot in labor requirements.
Don't get me wrong -- lots of people find their community through volunteering -- it's just that it can get to be a lot.
But not everyone who walks in the door is looking for that. For at least some of the people, the purpose is just to worship. (And for those who are there for community, well, there are also commands to worship...)
That’s socialism.
We like the quality of the preaching and the music. The smaller churches were better at some hands-on aspects, but it's hard for them to have the musicians (and the bench depth) that more population brings.
I'm waiting for people to figure out you can actually do quite a bit of good in a church. Food drives, clothing give-aways, etc. (Our church has a 'cars ministry' where we give away oil changes to needy families and sometimes give away donated cars.) It's tough to compete with Reddit and the like, where people can get a short-term feel of 'doing good' from behind a keyboard. But I don't think that's as 'real'. I'm hoping in time we'll see more people get excited about 'doing' in a hands-on manner.
In the meantime my friend group half-jokes about buying some land and all living on it together (really, I think with the right prompting/circumstances we'd do it), a commune if you will. We have also joked about starting our own "religion" for tax purposes. I wonder if this is how some cults start? I think a lot of people in my generation yearn for this kind connection/community/closeness since church is a non-starter (at least for people I associate with).
Bingo! Religion has always been primarily about community. The shared morals and traditions are in service to making a stronger community. Its a book club on steroids. If your church is boring and asocial, nobody will want to attend.
For a great many it is also about exclusion, a purification of that community. When I lived in the US I attended several community events (BBQs, sports days and such) with friends who were "in" a local church. It was all fun until someone got wind of the new guy with a non-local accent. Then I would be set upon by people asking probing questions to nail down my religious status, questions for which there are never good answers. Once I left early as my outsider status was evidently disruptive (a "leader" was loudly trying to convert me.) I also went to a big Mormon BBQ event which was, unexpectedly, 100% different. They just accepted the presence of an outsider and didn't feel the need to even bring it up. But for some reason they did keep offering me coffee.
https://archive.is/P1Cf5
In that context, the rise of megachurches is a Very Bad Thing. In my experience - being from a family with multiple generations of missionaries and pastors in that tradition - these types of unaffiliated churches often tend toward cults of personality, spreading a message that is at best oblivious to the concerns of anyone outside their extremely homogeneous congregations. True hate from the pulpit is rare, but fear of others and belief in literal devils trying to drive an anti-faith agenda are quite common. People thinking one's own community is special or blessed usually goes hand in hand with an implication that The Other is defective or diabolical. While not harmful in itself, it's a stepping stone to some pretty bad places.
It's a common error to think that repressive regimes are unstintingly serious. In fact, the worst elements can never have their way without the support of a broader community, which they often nurture through recreation, religion, etc. "Church is fun" can be a good thing, but it doesn't mean those "fun" churches' effect on the body politic is a good one.
I think you're right that it stems from a need to explain the unknown, which is why with modern science we have atheism on the rise. But I don't think your pessimism is entirely warranted. A church hosting a free BBQ is not "grifting"
If churches didn't require you to believe, maybe they'd have more attendees.
Look at "creedless" denominations over time to see how it plays out. There's no specific belief you need to hold to be a quaker for example, and as a result some quaker practices have been absorbed into other protestant churches while quakerism itself is almost dead.
Deleted Comment
It's harder to bond over sensible, obvious things that outsiders would agree with.
There's always been a tension between community bonds and reality.
The first church mentioned has a fancy website https://liquidchurch.com/ and mobile app with content for all ages. I was worried about the warping this will have on the political landscape, with such a centralized institution shaping morality, but from a brief tour of their website they do seem non political on the surface.
Will mega churches increase accountability as more eyeballs critique the leadership, while smaller, more politically diverse churches get starved out? Or with more power will they become more corrupt?
I had read an article previously about how American churches, needing more attendees, have become more political to pull in the numbers. I remember a quote saying something along the lines of the pastor "gets them for an hour a week, and talk radio gets them for the rest of the week." and so therefore the church begins to mimik the style and topics of talk radio. Will megachurches pull in so much money they don't need to worry about competing and won't further the polarization of the people?
Churches must maintain that public facade¹, but my experience is that private political grooming is common.
¹ https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/charities-churches-and-politics
The "engagingness" of entertainment has been increasing in absolute terms for a while now, and it really picked up in the 20th century. Meanwhile, the "engagingness" of mainstream religion has not kept pace. It is perhaps indicative that those groups of people best able to keep devout religious practices also typically shun all the rest of consumer entertainment.
In that frame, megachurches represent an evolution to survive this higher-engagement ecosystem. To compete, church must be more fun, which in this case means turning into a giant pep-rally/rock concert.
The (excellent) book Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman made a similar point. Basically, the characteristics of communication mediums have a strong influence on the content (e.g. television has to entertain), and as certain mediums get popular, they set up corrosive expectations (e.g. learning has to be fun, so people reject learning things that may be important and valuable but aren't entertaining).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
From the outside, it appears that these megachurches are offering sort of an AWS for religion, facilitating small-group worship that happens in all kinds of ways. So you get the Agile Open Spaces idea, where folks can self-select in-or-out and topics to dive into, combined with the small group worship concept.
That's just a guess. I don't do churches. But the concept of an overall "thing" that people align to, then a very large group of people in another kind of "thing", and finally some sort of small-scale high-value interaction (for all three levels) is fascinating and not, in my opinion, unique to religion.
My (relatively puny) outfit has been a user of https://www.planningcenter.com/ for a couple of years, and I think that it has much traction amongst larger ones.
At the end of the day they operate the same way a business does, once you scale your product your org becomes bigger and cluttered, therefore some people prefer a more "customized" religious experience and end up abandoning these megachurches