I've been inside a megachurch for a wedding. It was impressive in size and the seats were velvet and plush. The screen was huge, sound system top of the line and they spared no expense when it came to vast floor to ceiling drapery and plants. It was a ginormous auditorium and had a connecting grade AND high school attached. There was even a coffee shop in the lobby.
I was terrified as hell and could not wait to get out of there.
It was a theater...a circus...a stage. It had no humble scrappings of a poverty-rich Jesus. It was a tanning booth and chunky gold jewelry. It felt very charlatan. Very door-to-door salesman. It felt like the kind of sales seminars people suffer through to get the free vacation. I wonder if the free vacation they are peddling is heaven. I could not recognize God in that place even when the pastor was speaking. The modern art type of cross near the mic felt cheapened in the shadow of a widescreen sales pitch. What I heard and seen was not about humility and meekness. It was about putting on a show. Keep them entertained (it doesn't matter what you say, but HOW you say it) and they will keep coming back. The coins will fall into the slots if you keep them entertained.
In the original bible, church was defined as a gathering of people - often small. I can see where one would get more out of a smaller group. Like teacher to student ratios for classrooms. This place felt like an assembly line factory. The opiate of the great big mass who knew they were having a good time.
The decadence of the Catholic Church was on par with the excess of this megachurch business.
As a follow up, I think there are some good comments regarding the meshing of evangelicals and money in the United States from a 2005 Bloomberg article called "Of Megachurches and Megabucks".
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Bloomberg Businessweek: The Popularity Issue
August 16, 2010
Church: Lakewood, Houston
Over the past two decades, megachurches in the U.S. have expanded their flocks from 200,000 to more than 8 million souls, according to the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey by Trinity College in Hartford. The biggest by far is Lakewood Church in Houston, a non-denominational Christian congregation. The church seats 16,000 and boasts a weekly attendance of 43,500, according to evangelical magazine Outreach's annual list of the "100 Largest and Fastest-Growing Churches." Lakewood's kinetic pastor, Joel Osteen, reaches 7 million U.S. TV viewers each week. His gospel of prosperity—"Don't simply settle for what your parents had"—is broadcast in 100 countries.
Although their most explosive growth may be behind them, megachurches are still attracting congregants. Outreach says America's 100 fastest-growing megachurches added 97,879 members last year. LifeChurch.tv grew fastest, adding more than 5,000. —Caroline Winter
2 comments:
The saddest part is that you said you only attended for a wedding, not an actual service (tickets are available online at www.hollowsouls.com). I'm personally reluctant to ever attend one of them regardless of the situation, because I think it would end similar to buying a car; signing documents and telling them I won't go to hell without purchasing the undercoating!
Thanks for commenting, Crazz :)
It is true. I only attended for a wedding but it was a service-y wedding and I was there long enough to gather that it was all about the spectacle of churchianity and not the humble, suffering servant life of helping those most in need of a non-elitist, non-judgmental party.
I hear you on that undercoating bit! LOL
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