Reflections From Week 2

This post is actually an assignment—so, it might be a little too churchy or boring for a lot of you—feel freedom to skip this one.

Last class gave a fascinating history of the mega church movement in the United States.  For those not familiar with the term “mega church” it connotes a church with a huge parking lot, huge building and sanctuary, often times huge grounds that the church is built upon, thousands of members and a very carefully choreographed, timed and produced worship service.

The first mega churches started in the 70’s responding to suburbanization—their goal was to do church in such a way that it felt like going to a mall.  The original mega church was The Crystal Cathedral, which was started by Robert Schuler who was highly influenced himself by Norman Vincent Peale.  Schuler’s basic approach was to go door to door asking people what they wanted in a church—he then built that church.

In the 80’s Rick Warren (Saddleback) and Bill Hybels (Willow Creek) would copy Schuler’s model to great success.  By the 90’s these two churches would have tens of thousands of churches affiliated with them.

Although the mega churches did a good job of reaching Baby Boomers who left mainline denominations and had moved to the suburbs, its glory days are past.

Dr. Bolger offered a critique of the mega church movement along these lines.  Just like Mission Stations in India pulled converts out of their own culture—which thus was devastating to their relationships with family and friends—mega churches are now doing the same thing.

The culture of the mega church is modern (as opposed to postmodern) and follows the business model set out by McDonalds.  GenX folks reject both the modern culture and also reject the corporate business model.  This means that successful GenX churches have a postmodern worldview and they have a view of church that is not corporate but more like a family.  A GenX church would argue that having advertisements is antithetical for a church—a family would never advertise.