In the Great Giveaway (ch. 2) I argued that the new post-Enlightenment generations will not trust the highly produced worship seeker-sensitive Sunday morning services of the mega church. They trust community, places to connect, authentic lived truth, the organic beauty of a simple worship liturgy. I wrote:
Postmoderns … suspect the machinations of consumer-oriented messages to have power over them to make “buy” decisions. Instead postmoderns recognize truth most where it is lived day to day one with another. The postmodern is convinced of truth through participation, not consumer appeals, through wholly lived display, not reasoned arguments. Seeker services will still work for the boomers and those raised in modernity either by age or in the Evangelical subculture. These people of modernity were taught to trust only their individual minds or experiences. Postmoderns however know their minds or experiences can be manipulated. Modernist boomers are suspicious of tradition in the true Enlightenment sense. They are the ultimate feeling generation, self indulgent and focused on their own “felt needs.” Post modernity however, finds a generation that suspects the blatant consumer oriented persuasion of the dominant media. Their “felt needs” have an ever shorter MTV-like life span. Some of this Next generation sees marketing and advertising as capitalist intrusions with an agenda into forming people certain ways so as to benefit certain economic power interests. They respect truth that is lived. The postmodern generation may enjoy the show for a short while. But they are looking for a home; a community wherein a belonging can take root and the moral fabric of truth can be borne out. If postmodern culture is for real, seeker services are running out of time. The next generation seeks community over anonymity and is over dosed on consumer appeals to felt needs. Postmoderns desire something bigger to be transformed in to.
Now comes this stunning post by my friend Darryl Dash reporting on the popular Canadian radio host Drew Marshall’s experiment to hire non-Christians to visit churches and report back on their experiences (reminiscent of this and this). These accounts, that Darryl reports on, seem to substantiate what I (and many others) was writing about. I urge you to read Darryl’s post. It is stunning at how the need for this development, of going from produced church to organic community, is eerily recited back to us in the reports of these two non Christians.
Canada, by most accounts, is ahead of United States in the march to post Christendom. I grew up there, spend much time there and count many Canadians as good friends. Yet I believe in Canada many evangelicals will still insist on the mega-church as the answer to contextualize Christianity for the challenges of a hyper-busy consumerist late capitalist society. This report however argues against that. In the United States, I believe (more than in Canada) evangelicals will continue to build mega churches to warehouse the existing Christian base in our population. But we will die in two generations if we do not seed and support the missional efforts of the missional church/ emerging church movement.
What do you think about the imminent future of the mega-church in Canada and the United States?Do the reports of the non-Christians in Darryl’s post substantiate the thesis as articulated above? Can the mega church change to survive in post Christendom?
—————————————
I’m in Indiana for a few days relaxing at the home of my wife’s family. Hope everyone is having (or had) some nice getaway time for either July 4th or Canada Day weekend.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
Now I’ll confess I pastor a small Mainline congregation — so this could be tinged with just a bit of jealousy — but I don’t think that mega-churches will have a long life span. They depend too much on entertainment values and charismatic leaders. Transitioning to the next generation of leadreship has always proven difficult in such places. My sense is that mega-churches will hang on for the next decade or so, but will catch fewer and fewer people. The question is, who will connect with the hearts and minds of the people — secularism, apathy, other forms of faith such as smaller more intimate communities.
Small churches find it difficult to find their place in a world where we all expect to go and find a full service institution already up and running. But where the future goes, we’ll see!
One reason that it’s difficult to find a church home where I am is that all of the churches of my heritage in this small town are so large as to reduce me to anonymity. And I’m not necessarily meaning that they’ve got 5,000 members. Give me a meeting in someone’s house with 20 other people of various ages any Sunday of the year over a church of even 300.
Hey D.F.,
I really like this post…of course. A couple things…
Its been a good ten or eleven years since I stopped taking French. What is “son et lumiere”, of “but really: why the son et lumiere? I found the medium more than a bit out of whack with the message.” I have a sense of what he’s talking about, but no definite image. Is he talking about some flashy power point or something of the sort?
And sometimes when I’m actually not numb to God and reality, I can be a bit of an emotional girl, if you will. I was quite moved by: “My fear had left me, there was a calm sense of wonder now…he spoke very calmly in a quiet voice that exuded a wisdom only achieved through many years of heart wrenching reality…I could tell then and there we had found what this experiment was set out to accomplish, a church that saw past the money, power and the heighten sense of moral superiority that we have grown accustomed to…Amidst all the pomp and circumstance of the Christian world out there, here lies a simple, honest place that really means it.”
Recently I watched “Andrei Rublev,” by Andrei Tarkovsky. It, along with church the night before, began to reconcile me, I think, to “years of heart wrenching reality.” In my case only five or six here in the market driven world of “architecture.” But what I find interesting is the film’s…as well as the wise and seasoned pastor’s…apparent understanding of and centering of his Jesus message…not on “pomp and circumstance” (like most films and churches)…but on an understanding of suffering with Christ.
Blessings,
Jason
David,
Thanks, as always, for a great post.
I am currently employed as a youth pastor at a mega-church. It is the second that I have worked within. My education and life experience gave me the heart to work within megas and try to inspire change (maybe that’s a bit bold and egotistical, but it’s honest). What I’ve discovered in both churches, and maybe this isn’t very profound, is that it is highly unlikely that any of these signs will be taken seriously by a mega-church. They do not want to change, cannot imagine doing things differently, and don’t see why they would need to anyways.
I guess what I’m getting at is this; do we just give up on mega-churches and watch as the gigantic buidlings become large echo chambers? Does the criticism aimed at them really do any good, or is it falling on deaf ears? What role should those who are not involved in the mega-church world have within it? I ask these questions with sincerity and with honestly no idea what the answer should be.
I have (and do) attend a mega church, and I also attend from time to time a local Anglican church within walking distance of my home. I’ve come to appreciate different types of churches – big and small and in between. My prayer is that we Christians will stop being critical of other churches and encourage people to attend the church of their choice (and respect those choices without being critical of whatever church is chosen).
as always, thanks for these comments … Jason, can’t answer that french question …
to kris … is there something inappropriate about asking “is the clock ticking for the mega church?” Is there something inapprorpiate about asking these questions about the form of mega church? Seriously … haven’t we always asked these important questions about the church, its faithfulness to christ, and its willingness to meet the challenge of our times? Not to tweek this too much, but your emphasis on the category of choice as determinative? Is this not underwriting the consumerism we all fear? I’m serious about these questions, not trying to be contentious … in any case, I appreciate yoiur willingness to warn us against “being critical” foir the sake of being critical.
Blessings
Hey DF,
Thanks for the response. I figured that, being Canadian, you would know the French. It sounds, however, as if whoever the dude was who used the phrase, was being quite cleverously funny:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Son_et_lumi%C3%A8re_(show)
“Son et lumière (French, lit. “sound and light”), or a sound and light show is a form of nighttime entertainment that is usually presented in an outdoor venue of historic significance. Special lighting effects are projected onto the façade of a building or ruin and synchronized with recorded or live narration and music to dramatize the history of the place. The invention of the concept is credited to Paul Robert-Houdin, who was the curator of the Château de Chambord in France, which hosted the world’s first son et lumière in 1952. Another was established in the early 1960s at the site of the Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt.”
I like, “Essentially the format involves no active participation by actors but a recorded narrative of the history of the building concerned by one or a cast of voices. To this is added music or sound effects as appropriate, all of which is synchronised to lighting effects which provide the visual dimension.”
Sounds JUST like your typical church service! Everything is a copy/recording of something some distant God said long ago but who often seems to no longer have any substantial presence with us now.
“Pyrotechnic effects are occasionally included to give added spectacle.”
LOL. “God is a consuming fire” – a bunch of Medieval mystics.
“A relatively recent variation is that, rather than the music and narration coming through a concert-like sound system, they may use headsets, such as in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s “Lights of Liberty”. This allows an audience to move through a historic district as the show proceeds.”
Ah yes. Movie time with God. Eternity for “show” at church! “Real time”? Who needs it anymore.
“In Britain, where the majority of such productions have been staged at churches, cathedrals and abbeys, indoor presentations are frequently preferred, particularly as architectural gems might otherwise not be shown to best advantage.”
“Best advantage.” Argh. Because…oh yeah…100 watts crafted and controled by us is much better than the sun…argh.
David, Yes. This is interesting and I thank you for it.
I do wonder at the popularity of places like Mars Hill Bible Church with Rob Bell. I would say the majority there from what I know are not baby boomers. Yet that place is packed. I’m sure there has to be some outlet for community there, but I think alot of people just plug in for one service a week. Maybe that’s an exception to the rule, they do give one a sense of community I would think from my download of messages from there, but in itself that is not adequate.
ted …
I would never want to disparage one church or one mega pastor by name… especially if I have not visited nor know the person. For me, the notion that any church is built around a personality … or a given pastor’s preaching, because he/she is either brilliant, enagaging, entertaining … counters the very definition of what it means to be the church gathered in worship of Jesus Christ as Lord. There is much more to be said about the dynamic of a church “built” around a personality and how it goes against the nature of worship itself, how it is a product of modernity, how it runs counter to forming communal bodies of Christ, how it in the end is rejected by those who have not already had sufficient indoctrination in Christianity so as to make a packaged presentation palatable … for all these reasons (I say each of these not flippantly) … I believe the clock MIGHT be ticking for mega church in the lands of post Christendom (P.S. Grand Rapids probably isn’t a good candidate for a post Christian city).
Peace .. and thanks for the engagement
Marshill has an extensive network of house churches. Rob repeatedly and sometimes emphatically states that their Sunday mornings is just teaching and worship in song and Eucharist, not church.
David, I think YES, we’re seeing the end of the recycling of the saints. But what do we do about guys like Osteen and Schuller, those who continually create spectacle that lures away many a gaze. I suspect those two types probably appealto the boomers and older. I know all of my friends, even the non-Fuller ones, between the ages of 20-35 find them repulsive and even antithetical to the message and way of Jesus.
David,
Thought you and your readers would be interested in the church reviews that are published in the San Diego Reader: http://www.sdreader.com/published/archives/sheep_archive.html
They have been doing church reviews every month since November 2004. I have not seen this done in other cities – has anyone else? When I discovered these reviews, I was a bit repulsed; however, they are well done and might be useful for a person who feels inclined to go “church shopping”. While I think it is sad that our culture even uses the term “church shopping”, that’s a subject for another time.
Based on my experience people in the postmodern generation either love the mega church or find it slick and disingenuous.
I think the church that will struggle in the future is the mid-sized church. People will want the intimacy of a small gathering or the “excellence” of a large one.