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Wednesday, February 14, 2007
The Walmart Gospel Blues
What's it like to be a megachurch? It is it a glimpse of heaven here on earth? Or, is it a tangled web of church problems multiplied a hundred or a thousand times over?
What do we make of this photo? Looks like a megachurch with Jesus in the foreground. Is he throwing up his arms in despair? Singing a contemporary worship song? Giving the benediction? I simply don't know.
It's from Shakespeare's Sister, October 11, 2005
She writes: "Slate has an interesting photo essay of megachurches worth checking out. Generally, I find them truly hideous displays of everything wrong with modern architecture, which is why I’m strangely fascinated by them. This is my favorite all-time example of a megachurch."
Here is a photo essay from Slate that begins with this paragraph:
"Megachurch"—like "McMansion" or "big-box store"—is a disdainful put-down. And like many put-downs it is not particularly accurate; very large churches have been around for a long time. Think Hagia Sophia, the Gothic cathedrals, or that Vatican megabasilica, St. Peter's, which accommodates 60,000 worshipers. (The largest church in the world is an overscaled replica of St. Peter's in Côte d'Ivoire, of all places.) What distinguishes the current crop of megachurches is not so much their size—none rivals St. Peter's—but their different sense of architectural style.
Church-ownership a miracle for mall
Once downtrodden site gets a revival
By Russell Working
Tribune staff reporter
Published May 28, 2007
The front side of the Forest Park Mall could belong to any shopping center on Roosevelt Road. Behind a stucco facade, customers hunt for groceries at Ultra Foods, shower curtains at Kmart, phones at a US Cellular store.
But enter the mall and follow the beat of a gospel band, and you'll find yourself in a 3,500-seat sanctuary where worshipers from the Living Word Christian Center are clapping and singing hallelujahs. Rev. Bill Winston preaches while cameras project his image on giant video screens.
This is the landlord's side of the building.
Combining Bible and business acumen, Living Word has transformed what was once an eyesore listed on a Web site called Deadmalls.com into a thriving if unusual hybrid: half mega-church, half shopping mall.
Since the nondenominational church bought the dying mall in 1998, Living Word has more than doubled to 15,000 members while creating a facility divided between a state-of-the-art worship center and the church's commercial subsidiary at 7600 W. Roosevelt Rd.
Both sides of the mall speak to the church's mission: not only saving souls, but also modeling economic development for a largely black congregation. Living Word has established a business school, a broadcast media center, a Christian bookstore, a kindergarten-through-8th-grade academy and its own clothing stores selling business apparel.
The church-owned Forest Park Plaza Inc., which runs the mall, has built a new facade for the building and earns rent from tenants like Kmart and Old Country Buffet.
"I truly believe that if a person is a Christian, that they, according to the Scriptures, are the seed of Abraham," Winston says. "And as the seed of Abraham, everything I lay my hand to is going to prosper."
Along the way, Living Word has transformed a block that village officials had feared would become a blight on a major commercial strip in the western suburb.
"Pastor Winston and his team have just done a phenomenal job," Forest Park Mayor Anthony Calderone said. "The mall was absolutely deserted when Living Word purchased that property. ... It was terrible, absolutely terrible."
ALERT! Sunday, 4 February 2007, 21:00 CST
"Megachurches' Growing Ever Faster"
An evangelical church in Tysons Corner, Va., is growing beyond its 13,000 worshippers and $93 million campus, following the trend of modern megachurches.
The Washington Post reported on the growth and expansion of megachurches -- those with more than 2,000 worshippers -- which are becoming more and more common in the United States.
THE ULTIMATE CHURCH
I love megachurch satire, and no one is better than Tom Raabe. The following is from Chapter 6 of my book, LEFT BEHIND IN A MEGACHURCH WORLD:
The year is 2005, as it was foretold fifteen years earlier by futurist and humorist Tom Raabe. In his book, The Ultimate Church: An Irreverent Look at Church Growth, Megachurches & Ecclesiastical “Show Biz,” he begins by picturing the biggest rage in church business after the turn of the millennium. The setting is Southern California. The main character is Dr. Roy Dude, the pastor, with a strong supporting role played by Head Usher Simon Glibface, who is featured on the cover of Christianity Today and whose autobiography is titled There’s Life Beyond Name Tags. First Ultra-Church of Southern California “lays claim to 2.5 million souls”—increasing at the rate of some ten thousand members a month or “333 per day, 13.9 per hour, and one every 5 minutes.” To keep track of those millions, “Dude has 166,279 cell groups, 172,346 deacons, and 12,820 full-time staff.”
Church life in 2005 has moved far beyond the 1980s and 90s. First Ultra “makes the Crystal Cathedral look like a house church,” by comparison. Tom Raabe, the author, is visiting the church—“along with twenty-nine of my fellows”—and the tour guide is Usher Glibface. He is most impressed by the train system with stations at various points throughout the facility. More efficient than an airport, people are picked up and returned to their parked cars a mile away. But even more remarkable is the “Cry Room.” Here the visitors viewed the ultimate nursery: “Three-thousand crib capacity, with one-way windows and acoustically perfect sound.” Glibface had the description and statistics on the tip of his tongue: “We have on hand 16 rattles, 4,000 dolls, 2,000 washettes, and 4,000 crib mobiles” and pointing to a huge bin, he said with a touch of pride, it “has the capacity to process 50,000 diapers a day.” [Tom Raabe, The Ultimate Church: An Irreverent Look at Church Growth, Megachurches & Ecclesiastical “Show Biz,” (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 13-17.]
But First Ultimate is not just about numbers, as Usher Glibface emphasizes. It’s about land acquisition—like the present location acquired in 1995, when Dude purchased the Los Angeles Airport, LAX (with the airport relocating at a nearby landfill). The numerical growth and massive facilities did not come about by human endeavor alone, Glibface emphasizes. Prayer was critical, as is illustrated by the innovation of the rail system:
“For five years we ringed the sanctuary with lots,” Glibface said. “And when those were filled, we paved lots behind them, and more behind them. Finally, in 2001, attendance plateaued at 1.8 million. And curiously, our lots were only at 71 percent capacity. It was a crisis time for First Ultra. Dr. Dude prayed and fasted for a week on Mount Baldy, and when he came down, he imparted to us the Principle of Distance Strangulation: People will not willingly walk more than three-quarters of a mile from parking spot to sanctuary. At a ballgame, maybe. At church, no way. We had near-empty lots sitting a mile from church. Obviously some type of surface transportation was needed. Dr. Dude toyed with purchasing surplus army helicopters—they seat fifty-five. But finally he chose light rail. We experienced a little backdoor loss from that—200,000 members. But we gained that number back in no time.”
For more of Tom Raabe, check out this site.
The Domed Legacy Church in Albuquerque
Legacy Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico provides special programs for every age group; televised, recorded services with contemporary music and drama presentations; an elementary school and a bible academy. Read more.
Here is Houston's giant Lakewood Church
Lakewood Church is actually a converted sports arena—the Compaq Center, once home to the Houston Rockets. The modified exterior (at right) raises an important issue: The desire of congregations to make their place of worship a part of everyday life rather than a place apart is admirable, and one can sympathize with the wish to avoid the traditional ecclesiastical symbols that have been pretty much co-opted by mainstream religions. But having turned their backs on tradition, megachurches need to find appropriate architectural alternatives. Just putting up a sign and a fountain is not enough. The overbearing and clumsy exterior of Lakewood Church, designed by Morris Architects of Houston, demonstrates the peril of downplaying architectural design, especially in a building as large and imposing as this one.
WHAT IS A MEGACHURCH?
When I was growing up, we defined churches by denomination. They might be big churches (over 200) or medium or small, but the most important factor was whether it was a Baptist or a Catholic or Lutheran or Pentecostal church. And we knew all the sub-divisions as well. However, megachurch has little to do with denomination. They are all the same. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all!. Well, not really. But, in most cases it would be very difficult to tell the difference between a Baptist or Methodist or Reformed or Assemblies of God megachurch—without first reading the fine print.
What is a megachurch? It is a term that is readily bandied about, but no two definitions are alike—at least as I have discovered in my research. The one I found most interesting—and perhaps most true to life is—is offered by Leith Anderson, the minister of Wooddale Church which sponsored the Sunday services in the Mall of America. He ought to qualify as one who knows the definition of a mega church.
Megachurches have 2,000 or more people at worship services each weekend. They are like large shopping malls offering a broad array of services to enormous numbers of people. Megachurches have large staffs, require expansive facilities, operate on multimillion dollar budgets, provide an impressive variety of services, tend to be leader led, and often have excellent preaching and music. . . . It is important to recognize that megachurches are not large versions of minichurches, just as a train is not a large car. They are different kinds of churches. They relate differently. They minister differently. They see themselves differently. . . . [Leith Anderson, A Church for the 21st Century, (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1992), 54.]
SEE PHOTOS of Central Christian Church in Wichita, Kansas
SIN IN THE CAMP
In my book, Left Behind in a Megachurch World, I tell of scandal many years ago in a little church where I was the pastor's wife. My ex-husband was caught stealing money--and it was by no means an isolated incident. I had known there were similar problems before we married, but I was convinced that such things were part of the past. My husband's arrest made the local newspaper, but it was buried among other arrests--certainly not headlines.
A huge disadvantage of being a megachurch pastor is that such sins make headlines. Ted Haggard was more than a super-sized New Life megachurch pastor. He headed the National Association of Evangelicals. AND, his sin was that of "drugs and homosexuality"--a long-term relationship with a gay prostitute. Actually, it involved more than one gay prostitute as further evidence shows.
But even when a minister does not have such prominence, a big church means big publicity. Not long after Haggard was exposed, the Rev. Paul Barnes resigned from Grace Chapel, another Colorado megachurch (only 2100 members)--and another case relating to homosexuality. The 54-year old married minister confessed only after his secret was reported.
This story piqued my interest because it involved my long-time friend Dave Palmer, who serves as an associate pastor at Grace Chapel in Castle Rock. From the Denver Post:
"Palmer said the church got an anonymous call last week from a person concerned for the welfare of Barnes and the church. The caller had overheard a conversation in which someone mentioned "blowing the whistle" on evangelical preachers engaged in homosexuality, including Barnes, Palmer said.
Palmer met with Barnes, who confessed. At an emergency meeting Thursday, a board of elders accepted Barnes' resignation after he admitted "sexual infidelity," violating the church's code of conduct. Church leaders also must affirm annually that they are "living the moral and ethical teachings of Scripture in my public and private life."
MY OWN MEMORIES OF A LEFT-BEHIND CHURCH
I was born into a left-behind church. From infancy until high school graduation I rarely missed Sunday services. I was not, however, a child of the covenant. No baptism. No dedication. No confirmation. I was a step-child of the faith. My folks attended regularly but remained all their lives on the fringe. They had never gotten properly saved—and that made all the difference. I did get saved. It is a story I have told in various settings, including my book Walking Away from Faith.
I went back to that little country church a year ago. Grass was growing through the cracks in the sidewalk and the weeds sprouting everywhere were tell-tale signs of abandonment. The church is now closed. Many seasons had passed since I walked through those weathered wooden doors. I had expected it to be locked. But the door creaked open—barred only by spider webs and boxes partially blocking the inner hallway leading to the sanctuary. I call it a sanctuary, but that’s a fancy word that was never used when I was growing up. This once-filled rectangular room had been shorn of its pews and pulpit. Around the walls were assorted pieces of furniture and boxes and bags that had been left by generous neighbors following a devastating tornado.
I have fond memories of that little church—a church that never amounted to much at all, certainly not by mega-church standards. A Church-growth expert would have taken its pulse and pronounced it dead long before it actually expired. By all standards, it was a loser. The numbers just didn’t add up, and every pastor we ever had was forced to get work on the side to make a living.
But, it would be difficult for me to exaggerate the formative influence that church has had on my life—not only my spiritual pilgrimage but also my vocational ministry.
MEGACHURCH COMPASSION
Here is an article in the Dallas Morning News that at first glance doesn't appear to reflect compassion. I think it does. This church was between a rock and a hard place--considering its opposition to a gay lifestyle--and I think it sought to do what it could to accommodate the family.
DallasNews.com
Church won't hold funeral for gay man
Kin scramble to find new site after Arlington clerics renege on offer
02:47 PM CDT on Thursday, August 16, 2007
By JEFFREY WEISS / The Dallas Morning News
jweiss@dallasnews.com
An Arlington church volunteered to host a funeral Thursday, then reneged on the invitation when it became clear the dead man's homosexuality would be identified in the service.
The event placed High Point Church in the cross hairs of an issue many conservative Christian organizations are discussing: how to take a hard-line theological position on homosexuality while showing compassion toward gay people and their families.
But the dispute between High Point Church and the friends and family of Cecil Sinclair has left confusion and hard feelings on both sides.
Mr. Sinclair, 46, died Monday. He was a native of Fort Worth, a Navy veteran who served in Desert Storm helping rescuers find downed pilots, and a singer in the Turtle Creek Chorale, said his mother, Eva Bowers. He did not belong to a church.
His brother, Lee, is an employee and member of High Point, a nondenominational mega-congregation led by the Rev. Gary Simons. Mr. Simons is the brother-in-law of Joel Osteen, nationally known pastor of Houston's Lakewood Church.
When Cecil Sinclair became ill with a heart condition six years ago, church members started praying for him out of love for his brother, Mr. Simons said Thursday. And when Mr. Sinclair died of an infection, a side effect of surgery intended to keep him alive long enough for a heart transplant, a member of the church staff was immediately sent to minister to the family, he said.
Both the family and church officials agree that the church volunteered to host a memorial service, feed 100 guests and create a multimedia presentation of photos from Mr. Sinclair's life.
But the photos that the family selected alerted church officials that there might be a problem with the service, Mr. Simons said.
Not OK with photos
"Some of those photos had very strong homosexual images of kissing and hugging," he said. "My ministry associates were taken aback."
And then, he said, the family asked to have its own people officiate the service. "We had no control over the format of the memorial," Mr. Simons said.
Family and friends discovered the church had withdrawn its invitation Wednesday evening, when Lee Sinclair called to tell his mother, she said. Ms. Bowers said that her older son is developmentally disabled, with hearing and vision problems.
Nobody from the church called her or Mr. Sinclair's partner, Paul Wagner, to discuss possible changes to the service, Ms. Bowers said.
"We could have reached a compromise," she said. "That was never attempted."
At least some theological questions could have been worked out, she said. For instance, the family was willing to allow the church to issue an "altar call" asking people to accept Jesus at the end of the service.
But it's not clear where the two sides could have found common ground on the central issue. High Point Church opposes homosexuality, and there was no way the church could host a service that appeared to endorse it, Mr. Simons said.
"Can you hold the event and condone the sin and compromise our principles?" he said. "We can't."
The issue was not so much that Mr. Sinclair was, from the church's perspective, an unrepentant sinner, he said. It's that it was clear from the photos that his friends and family wanted that part of his life to be a significant part of the service.
The pastor said that he could imagine a similar situation involving a different sin. Perhaps a mother who is a member of the church loses a son who is a thief or murderer, Mr. Simons said. The church would surely volunteer to hold a service, he said.
"But I don't think the mother would submit photos of her son murdering someone," he said. "That's a red light going off."
"Knew it, accepted it'
Mr. Sinclair's family and friends reject any such comparison between homosexuality and criminal behavior. Mr. Sinclair came out officially to his family shortly after his service in the Gulf War, his mother said.
"We all knew it," she said. "We knew it and accepted it."
After the church decided it would not host the funeral service, it offered to pay for another facility, Mr. Simons said. The family declined and found a local funeral home to hold the event Thursday night.Even so, the church sent over food and the video – minus the images church officials found to be offensive.
"Some of our people will be there at the memorial service," Mr. Simons said. "We tried to do the very best of our ability to express the love of Christ."
Figuring out how to walk that line is not easy, said the Rev. Bob Stith, the recently retired pastor of Carroll Baptist Church in Southlake who is now the national strategist for gender issues for the Southern Baptist Convention. His new job is to help churches negotiate conflicts like the one faced by High Point.
The best system is to work out procedures ahead of time, he said. For instance, he tells Baptist churches they should have clear guidelines that they can give to families at the start of funeral planning. But even that can't prevent every possible awkward situation, he said.
"I know because this is such new ground for a lot of churches and pastors, you get caught off-guard and you get reactive and not proactive," he said.
A familiar situation
If so, that kind of reaction is all too familiar to survivors of the AIDS onslaught of the 1980s, said Ed Young, a charter member of the Turtle Creek Chorale. Back then, having churches turn down funerals of gay men was not uncommon, he said.
"It may be surprising to younger gays, because most gays think that doesn't happen any more," he said. "But it's still there."
Was there a way to avoid this conflict?
"I don't know if there is any way to prevent something like that," Mr. Simons said. "Whenever there is a matter of principle involved, each side thinks that it is right."
What do we make of this photo? Looks like a megachurch with Jesus in the foreground. Is he throwing up his arms in despair? Singing a contemporary worship song? Giving the benediction? I simply don't know.
It's from Shakespeare's Sister, October 11, 2005
She writes: "Slate has an interesting photo essay of megachurches worth checking out. Generally, I find them truly hideous displays of everything wrong with modern architecture, which is why I’m strangely fascinated by them. This is my favorite all-time example of a megachurch."
Here is a photo essay from Slate that begins with this paragraph:
"Megachurch"—like "McMansion" or "big-box store"—is a disdainful put-down. And like many put-downs it is not particularly accurate; very large churches have been around for a long time. Think Hagia Sophia, the Gothic cathedrals, or that Vatican megabasilica, St. Peter's, which accommodates 60,000 worshipers. (The largest church in the world is an overscaled replica of St. Peter's in Côte d'Ivoire, of all places.) What distinguishes the current crop of megachurches is not so much their size—none rivals St. Peter's—but their different sense of architectural style.
Church-ownership a miracle for mall
Once downtrodden site gets a revival
By Russell Working
Tribune staff reporter
Published May 28, 2007
The front side of the Forest Park Mall could belong to any shopping center on Roosevelt Road. Behind a stucco facade, customers hunt for groceries at Ultra Foods, shower curtains at Kmart, phones at a US Cellular store.
But enter the mall and follow the beat of a gospel band, and you'll find yourself in a 3,500-seat sanctuary where worshipers from the Living Word Christian Center are clapping and singing hallelujahs. Rev. Bill Winston preaches while cameras project his image on giant video screens.
This is the landlord's side of the building.
Combining Bible and business acumen, Living Word has transformed what was once an eyesore listed on a Web site called Deadmalls.com into a thriving if unusual hybrid: half mega-church, half shopping mall.
Since the nondenominational church bought the dying mall in 1998, Living Word has more than doubled to 15,000 members while creating a facility divided between a state-of-the-art worship center and the church's commercial subsidiary at 7600 W. Roosevelt Rd.
Both sides of the mall speak to the church's mission: not only saving souls, but also modeling economic development for a largely black congregation. Living Word has established a business school, a broadcast media center, a Christian bookstore, a kindergarten-through-8th-grade academy and its own clothing stores selling business apparel.
The church-owned Forest Park Plaza Inc., which runs the mall, has built a new facade for the building and earns rent from tenants like Kmart and Old Country Buffet.
"I truly believe that if a person is a Christian, that they, according to the Scriptures, are the seed of Abraham," Winston says. "And as the seed of Abraham, everything I lay my hand to is going to prosper."
Along the way, Living Word has transformed a block that village officials had feared would become a blight on a major commercial strip in the western suburb.
"Pastor Winston and his team have just done a phenomenal job," Forest Park Mayor Anthony Calderone said. "The mall was absolutely deserted when Living Word purchased that property. ... It was terrible, absolutely terrible."
ALERT! Sunday, 4 February 2007, 21:00 CST
"Megachurches' Growing Ever Faster"
An evangelical church in Tysons Corner, Va., is growing beyond its 13,000 worshippers and $93 million campus, following the trend of modern megachurches.
The Washington Post reported on the growth and expansion of megachurches -- those with more than 2,000 worshippers -- which are becoming more and more common in the United States.
THE ULTIMATE CHURCH
I love megachurch satire, and no one is better than Tom Raabe. The following is from Chapter 6 of my book, LEFT BEHIND IN A MEGACHURCH WORLD:The year is 2005, as it was foretold fifteen years earlier by futurist and humorist Tom Raabe. In his book, The Ultimate Church: An Irreverent Look at Church Growth, Megachurches & Ecclesiastical “Show Biz,” he begins by picturing the biggest rage in church business after the turn of the millennium. The setting is Southern California. The main character is Dr. Roy Dude, the pastor, with a strong supporting role played by Head Usher Simon Glibface, who is featured on the cover of Christianity Today and whose autobiography is titled There’s Life Beyond Name Tags. First Ultra-Church of Southern California “lays claim to 2.5 million souls”—increasing at the rate of some ten thousand members a month or “333 per day, 13.9 per hour, and one every 5 minutes.” To keep track of those millions, “Dude has 166,279 cell groups, 172,346 deacons, and 12,820 full-time staff.”
Church life in 2005 has moved far beyond the 1980s and 90s. First Ultra “makes the Crystal Cathedral look like a house church,” by comparison. Tom Raabe, the author, is visiting the church—“along with twenty-nine of my fellows”—and the tour guide is Usher Glibface. He is most impressed by the train system with stations at various points throughout the facility. More efficient than an airport, people are picked up and returned to their parked cars a mile away. But even more remarkable is the “Cry Room.” Here the visitors viewed the ultimate nursery: “Three-thousand crib capacity, with one-way windows and acoustically perfect sound.” Glibface had the description and statistics on the tip of his tongue: “We have on hand 16 rattles, 4,000 dolls, 2,000 washettes, and 4,000 crib mobiles” and pointing to a huge bin, he said with a touch of pride, it “has the capacity to process 50,000 diapers a day.” [Tom Raabe, The Ultimate Church: An Irreverent Look at Church Growth, Megachurches & Ecclesiastical “Show Biz,” (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1991), 13-17.]
But First Ultimate is not just about numbers, as Usher Glibface emphasizes. It’s about land acquisition—like the present location acquired in 1995, when Dude purchased the Los Angeles Airport, LAX (with the airport relocating at a nearby landfill). The numerical growth and massive facilities did not come about by human endeavor alone, Glibface emphasizes. Prayer was critical, as is illustrated by the innovation of the rail system:“For five years we ringed the sanctuary with lots,” Glibface said. “And when those were filled, we paved lots behind them, and more behind them. Finally, in 2001, attendance plateaued at 1.8 million. And curiously, our lots were only at 71 percent capacity. It was a crisis time for First Ultra. Dr. Dude prayed and fasted for a week on Mount Baldy, and when he came down, he imparted to us the Principle of Distance Strangulation: People will not willingly walk more than three-quarters of a mile from parking spot to sanctuary. At a ballgame, maybe. At church, no way. We had near-empty lots sitting a mile from church. Obviously some type of surface transportation was needed. Dr. Dude toyed with purchasing surplus army helicopters—they seat fifty-five. But finally he chose light rail. We experienced a little backdoor loss from that—200,000 members. But we gained that number back in no time.”
For more of Tom Raabe, check out this site.
The Domed Legacy Church in Albuquerque
Legacy Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico provides special programs for every age group; televised, recorded services with contemporary music and drama presentations; an elementary school and a bible academy. Read more.
Here is Houston's giant Lakewood Church
Lakewood Church is actually a converted sports arena—the Compaq Center, once home to the Houston Rockets. The modified exterior (at right) raises an important issue: The desire of congregations to make their place of worship a part of everyday life rather than a place apart is admirable, and one can sympathize with the wish to avoid the traditional ecclesiastical symbols that have been pretty much co-opted by mainstream religions. But having turned their backs on tradition, megachurches need to find appropriate architectural alternatives. Just putting up a sign and a fountain is not enough. The overbearing and clumsy exterior of Lakewood Church, designed by Morris Architects of Houston, demonstrates the peril of downplaying architectural design, especially in a building as large and imposing as this one.WHAT IS A MEGACHURCH?
When I was growing up, we defined churches by denomination. They might be big churches (over 200) or medium or small, but the most important factor was whether it was a Baptist or a Catholic or Lutheran or Pentecostal church. And we knew all the sub-divisions as well. However, megachurch has little to do with denomination. They are all the same. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen ‘em all!. Well, not really. But, in most cases it would be very difficult to tell the difference between a Baptist or Methodist or Reformed or Assemblies of God megachurch—without first reading the fine print.
What is a megachurch? It is a term that is readily bandied about, but no two definitions are alike—at least as I have discovered in my research. The one I found most interesting—and perhaps most true to life is—is offered by Leith Anderson, the minister of Wooddale Church which sponsored the Sunday services in the Mall of America. He ought to qualify as one who knows the definition of a mega church.
Megachurches have 2,000 or more people at worship services each weekend. They are like large shopping malls offering a broad array of services to enormous numbers of people. Megachurches have large staffs, require expansive facilities, operate on multimillion dollar budgets, provide an impressive variety of services, tend to be leader led, and often have excellent preaching and music. . . . It is important to recognize that megachurches are not large versions of minichurches, just as a train is not a large car. They are different kinds of churches. They relate differently. They minister differently. They see themselves differently. . . . [Leith Anderson, A Church for the 21st Century, (Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1992), 54.]
SEE PHOTOS of Central Christian Church in Wichita, Kansas
SIN IN THE CAMP
In my book, Left Behind in a Megachurch World, I tell of scandal many years ago in a little church where I was the pastor's wife. My ex-husband was caught stealing money--and it was by no means an isolated incident. I had known there were similar problems before we married, but I was convinced that such things were part of the past. My husband's arrest made the local newspaper, but it was buried among other arrests--certainly not headlines.
A huge disadvantage of being a megachurch pastor is that such sins make headlines. Ted Haggard was more than a super-sized New Life megachurch pastor. He headed the National Association of Evangelicals. AND, his sin was that of "drugs and homosexuality"--a long-term relationship with a gay prostitute. Actually, it involved more than one gay prostitute as further evidence shows. But even when a minister does not have such prominence, a big church means big publicity. Not long after Haggard was exposed, the Rev. Paul Barnes resigned from Grace Chapel, another Colorado megachurch (only 2100 members)--and another case relating to homosexuality. The 54-year old married minister confessed only after his secret was reported.
This story piqued my interest because it involved my long-time friend Dave Palmer, who serves as an associate pastor at Grace Chapel in Castle Rock. From the Denver Post: "Palmer said the church got an anonymous call last week from a person concerned for the welfare of Barnes and the church. The caller had overheard a conversation in which someone mentioned "blowing the whistle" on evangelical preachers engaged in homosexuality, including Barnes, Palmer said.
Palmer met with Barnes, who confessed. At an emergency meeting Thursday, a board of elders accepted Barnes' resignation after he admitted "sexual infidelity," violating the church's code of conduct. Church leaders also must affirm annually that they are "living the moral and ethical teachings of Scripture in my public and private life."
MY OWN MEMORIES OF A LEFT-BEHIND CHURCH
I was born into a left-behind church. From infancy until high school graduation I rarely missed Sunday services. I was not, however, a child of the covenant. No baptism. No dedication. No confirmation. I was a step-child of the faith. My folks attended regularly but remained all their lives on the fringe. They had never gotten properly saved—and that made all the difference. I did get saved. It is a story I have told in various settings, including my book Walking Away from Faith.
I went back to that little country church a year ago. Grass was growing through the cracks in the sidewalk and the weeds sprouting everywhere were tell-tale signs of abandonment. The church is now closed. Many seasons had passed since I walked through those weathered wooden doors. I had expected it to be locked. But the door creaked open—barred only by spider webs and boxes partially blocking the inner hallway leading to the sanctuary. I call it a sanctuary, but that’s a fancy word that was never used when I was growing up. This once-filled rectangular room had been shorn of its pews and pulpit. Around the walls were assorted pieces of furniture and boxes and bags that had been left by generous neighbors following a devastating tornado. I have fond memories of that little church—a church that never amounted to much at all, certainly not by mega-church standards. A Church-growth expert would have taken its pulse and pronounced it dead long before it actually expired. By all standards, it was a loser. The numbers just didn’t add up, and every pastor we ever had was forced to get work on the side to make a living.
But, it would be difficult for me to exaggerate the formative influence that church has had on my life—not only my spiritual pilgrimage but also my vocational ministry.
MEGACHURCH COMPASSION
Here is an article in the Dallas Morning News that at first glance doesn't appear to reflect compassion. I think it does. This church was between a rock and a hard place--considering its opposition to a gay lifestyle--and I think it sought to do what it could to accommodate the family.
DallasNews.com
Church won't hold funeral for gay man
Kin scramble to find new site after Arlington clerics renege on offer
02:47 PM CDT on Thursday, August 16, 2007
By JEFFREY WEISS / The Dallas Morning News
jweiss@dallasnews.com
An Arlington church volunteered to host a funeral Thursday, then reneged on the invitation when it became clear the dead man's homosexuality would be identified in the service.
The event placed High Point Church in the cross hairs of an issue many conservative Christian organizations are discussing: how to take a hard-line theological position on homosexuality while showing compassion toward gay people and their families.
But the dispute between High Point Church and the friends and family of Cecil Sinclair has left confusion and hard feelings on both sides.
Mr. Sinclair, 46, died Monday. He was a native of Fort Worth, a Navy veteran who served in Desert Storm helping rescuers find downed pilots, and a singer in the Turtle Creek Chorale, said his mother, Eva Bowers. He did not belong to a church.
His brother, Lee, is an employee and member of High Point, a nondenominational mega-congregation led by the Rev. Gary Simons. Mr. Simons is the brother-in-law of Joel Osteen, nationally known pastor of Houston's Lakewood Church.
When Cecil Sinclair became ill with a heart condition six years ago, church members started praying for him out of love for his brother, Mr. Simons said Thursday. And when Mr. Sinclair died of an infection, a side effect of surgery intended to keep him alive long enough for a heart transplant, a member of the church staff was immediately sent to minister to the family, he said.
Both the family and church officials agree that the church volunteered to host a memorial service, feed 100 guests and create a multimedia presentation of photos from Mr. Sinclair's life.
But the photos that the family selected alerted church officials that there might be a problem with the service, Mr. Simons said.
Not OK with photos
"Some of those photos had very strong homosexual images of kissing and hugging," he said. "My ministry associates were taken aback."
And then, he said, the family asked to have its own people officiate the service. "We had no control over the format of the memorial," Mr. Simons said.
Family and friends discovered the church had withdrawn its invitation Wednesday evening, when Lee Sinclair called to tell his mother, she said. Ms. Bowers said that her older son is developmentally disabled, with hearing and vision problems.
Nobody from the church called her or Mr. Sinclair's partner, Paul Wagner, to discuss possible changes to the service, Ms. Bowers said.
"We could have reached a compromise," she said. "That was never attempted."
At least some theological questions could have been worked out, she said. For instance, the family was willing to allow the church to issue an "altar call" asking people to accept Jesus at the end of the service.
But it's not clear where the two sides could have found common ground on the central issue. High Point Church opposes homosexuality, and there was no way the church could host a service that appeared to endorse it, Mr. Simons said.
"Can you hold the event and condone the sin and compromise our principles?" he said. "We can't."
The issue was not so much that Mr. Sinclair was, from the church's perspective, an unrepentant sinner, he said. It's that it was clear from the photos that his friends and family wanted that part of his life to be a significant part of the service.
The pastor said that he could imagine a similar situation involving a different sin. Perhaps a mother who is a member of the church loses a son who is a thief or murderer, Mr. Simons said. The church would surely volunteer to hold a service, he said.
"But I don't think the mother would submit photos of her son murdering someone," he said. "That's a red light going off."
"Knew it, accepted it'
Mr. Sinclair's family and friends reject any such comparison between homosexuality and criminal behavior. Mr. Sinclair came out officially to his family shortly after his service in the Gulf War, his mother said.
"We all knew it," she said. "We knew it and accepted it."
After the church decided it would not host the funeral service, it offered to pay for another facility, Mr. Simons said. The family declined and found a local funeral home to hold the event Thursday night.Even so, the church sent over food and the video – minus the images church officials found to be offensive.
"Some of our people will be there at the memorial service," Mr. Simons said. "We tried to do the very best of our ability to express the love of Christ."
Figuring out how to walk that line is not easy, said the Rev. Bob Stith, the recently retired pastor of Carroll Baptist Church in Southlake who is now the national strategist for gender issues for the Southern Baptist Convention. His new job is to help churches negotiate conflicts like the one faced by High Point.
The best system is to work out procedures ahead of time, he said. For instance, he tells Baptist churches they should have clear guidelines that they can give to families at the start of funeral planning. But even that can't prevent every possible awkward situation, he said.
"I know because this is such new ground for a lot of churches and pastors, you get caught off-guard and you get reactive and not proactive," he said.
A familiar situation
If so, that kind of reaction is all too familiar to survivors of the AIDS onslaught of the 1980s, said Ed Young, a charter member of the Turtle Creek Chorale. Back then, having churches turn down funerals of gay men was not uncommon, he said.
"It may be surprising to younger gays, because most gays think that doesn't happen any more," he said. "But it's still there."
Was there a way to avoid this conflict?
"I don't know if there is any way to prevent something like that," Mr. Simons said. "Whenever there is a matter of principle involved, each side thinks that it is right."
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