MegaChurch®

After a strange turn of events, my wife and I found ourselves spending a Mother's Day Sunday morning in a MegaChurch. My wife's brother, and his wife, are members of this church, and they invited us to sunday service to participate in the "dedication" of their newborn son. Our first reaction, I'm ashamed to say: We groaned. Do we have to? But then we thought about it. . .

When were we going to get such an opportunity again? Sure, the church is open to all, and we could go there anytime we wanted, but I suppose that, much like the vampire, we needed to be invited in. Plus, not only could we get brownie points for doing family stuff, but could experience some total-immersion field-anthropology at the same time. Let's go!

We had seen this place many times from the highway on our way to and from her parents house. A complex is what this place is. Huge frame buildings clustered around a white, pod-like "tent." We would joke about the place nervously as we passed it. "Tent is where they have the revival. Outbuildings are bunkrooms and munitions factories." Or, "The tent is where they keep the original bodies of their congregation in one huge support vat, all jumbled in with each other. All these people walking around? [whispered]Robots[/whispered]."

This is the view from the parking lot of the "outbuildings."



Around the other side are the tents. It's actually two tents, a smaller one that serves as a lobby/corridor that connects one of the frame buildings to the larger "venue" tent seen on the right. This picture is shot end-on:



We met up with our family and walked inside. We were immediately struck by the mall-like atmosphere and joked, "First Church of Christ: Mallwalker." And, "It's like a Faith Outlet Mall." Flat-screen TV's were everywhere, mostly displaying cross-fading calendar information. Lots of mostly white suburbanites milling about, dropping off their children at the Sunday School analog. I wish I had gotten pictures of that, but I was a still a little nervous to get my camera out. The children's area had a front playroom for the littlest ones. Behind that, a gymnasium-style venue where there was some kind of Kid's Service going on. Someone definitely onstage overseeing a kind of running activity for the youth. (Smart. Tire 'em out!) I only caught a glimpse, really.

Then into the main tent itself for the service. This is a view from our seats of the entrance-wall, but mostly of the tech board. That timer in the upper, left-hand side, counted forward from zero at the beginning of each "act," so there was no way to tell when a particular segment was almost over.


A little blurry. I didn't want to use my flash. Now pan right, the congregation and the interior of the tent:

Pan right again, a view of the stage and the lighting:


The show began with a woman reciting a poem, very tongue-in-cheek, about how *her* children are absolute angels because she had raised them right. (Oh, but we know different, don't we?) Very self-deprecating and jokey. And very aware of the camera. Screens were everywhere. Two TVs on the stage facing outward. Enormous projection screens on either side of the stage, and two more projections for the back of the stage, mostly displaying "backdrop" type images. Fields of flowers, etc. Here's a better view of the stage:


In the upper right you can see the corner of one of the projection screens. This is it, with lyrics from one of the many songs which were to follow:


We were dazzled by what followed. A fit, mustachioed man, late-thirties(?), led a robed choir in a sort of Gospel Lite musical number:


Incredible sound in that room. Smooth. Slick transitions onstage between segments. Tight segues.

Next was a video presentation, a montage of images of women illustrating character traits of, I guess, a good Christian woman. As the first image of a pregnant woman appeared we both shot each other a look, expecting the "Mothers-Day-Springboard-Into-Abortion," which we had been expecting all along. But the video sidestepped it, instead showing run-of-the-mill gender role clichés. One of them, I forget what the word being illustrated was, but the visual was of a woman's hands washing dishes. Dish-Washer. Baby-Have-er. Boo-Boo-Fixer. Talking about it later, I think we were both so relieved that they avoided blatant political soapboxing that we were willing to accept the gender stereotypes as par-for-the-course. And isn't that a bit more insidious?

I think we were both struck by the media-savviness of the whole thing. And what a great insight it shows on their part that they're appealing so specifically to a demographic, namely, that of mostly youngish, white, slightly monied couples (with children) who spend most of their leisure time watching television. The whole execution of the thing felt like television, and there were screens everywhere.

What else: Our Mustache-Man introduced a young woman as part of a missionary endeavor in India. We got the impression that she had been to India, and overseas, several times before. We both came away with the feeling that she seemed a little bemused by what she was witnessing here on this Sunday morning. Nothing overt. Just a feeling that she was looking around her thinking, "you people have no idea what's going on in the rest of the world." Something about her smile, and her sizing up of the crowd, maybe. After a short speech, she led the congregation in an obviously improvised prayer, and then gracefully made her exit.

Another musical number, then the "dedications." We hadn't been knowing what to expect, but it was fairly tame. Couples, and some single parents, brought their new children onstage and were introduced. They were shown on the projection screens and the meaning of each child's name was given. Not much to say about this.



Then, the Requisite Boring Old Preacher sermon. An older man delivered a nearly 30 minute "MetaSermon," as we later labelled it. Very self-referential about boring Mother's Day sermons he had delivered in the past. Again, all very jokey and self-deprecating. He related how a fellow preacher had given him the dubious complement of "high-caliber" preacher, in this case referring to "the size of the bore." This went on for nearly 15 minutes, and I was doubting whether there was going to be any real content. Finally, he got down to some scripture.

Again, we were shocked. He began talking about Mother's Day and quickly segued into Feminism. We were prepared to be offended and were amazed when he said some sensible things. I'm now turning this over to my wife, who remembers more specifically what he said:

Wife of Bunny, here. If you, Gentle Reader, expect total honesty, I must confess that I went into this looking, nay – DEMANDING, to be deeply morally offended. However, despite my surety that this particular morning would not fall short of these demands, the only offenses offered were, by and large, sartorial in nature. When Mr. Preacherman said that on Mother’s day we must think of the role that Feminism has played in shaping the lives of modern women, I experienced a quickening – here was going to be my big chance to stand up, yell a hearty “FUCK YOU!” and storm out. Here, surely, we were going to get some real controversy. Bring on the aborted fetuses and broken homes! What this frumpy old white man had to say, though, was rather surprising to me. Instead of railing against the evil Feminazis, this man said that, in the face of his skepticism, he had to admit to himself that Feminism has been a positive thing for the world. He went on to caution that the real danger of Feminism was not in taking women away from their “natural” job, rather, forcing them into working what amounts to two full-time jobs, with no more help than they had previously. He went on to express his belief that for a society to love mothers every day as we do on Mother’s Day, we must learn to value the work of women – in the home and out. Well, needless to say I was rather deflated – and kind of proud of that wrinkly old white man.

Thanks, Sweetie!



Then the service took a strange turn. The lights were dimmed, and the backdrop screens presented the images shown above. "Like a Metallica video," we whispered. It was announced that there would be an extended musical number, with communion, but that during this segment, congregants were encouraged to make their way to one of two doors on either side of the stage, each labeled "Prayer Room." Inside, we were informed, people were waiting to help us with whatever questions we may have. If we wanted to join the church, if we wanted witness to our conversion. . . "They keep the snakes in there," my wife whispered (ed. note from wife: It was actually my mother that made the snake comment). From inside came a large bouncer-type guy and an equally tough looking woman, both in black shirts, slacks, and brown blazers. They stood outside the door, ready to escort any and all inside. Few people did this, however. Maybe seven in all. I was tempted to get up and see for myself, but could think of no good excuse or question that I could realistically role-play for longer than thirty seconds. I kept bouncing up and down, almost getting up to beeline for the prayer rooms. In the end, my wife's alarmed looks kept me in my seat.

I contented myself with taking communion, which was passed around on specially designed holders. Round and gold, with small indentations throughout which held tiny clear plastic cups of grape juice. And a larger depression in the middle that held tiny chiclet-sized communion wafers. The grape juice made sense, there being probably more than a few recovering alcoholics in the congregation, but what was with the micro-wafers? "Look how much money it takes to run this place," I said. "This is where they decide to skimp?" I had never taken communion before and had always been curious. Wife, alarmed: "You're only supposed to take that if you believe in Jesus Christ!"

"Well, I sort of do," I countered. "In the Joseph Campbell 'Christ-potential-in-all-of-us' sense." Gulp! Down the hatch.

After the service was over everyone stood, it seemed in unison, and pretty much bolted for their cars. I've been in churches before where there was a bit of fellowship after the service, but this was a no-eye-contact vibe. My wife told me later that there was a "fellowship area" inside that she had seen on her way to the restroom, but reported that not very many people were hanging out there. The bulk of the congregation simply left.


Epilogue: Back home, later that evening, we went to a little get-together with our friends and excitedly told them about where we had spent the morning. They were definitely interested, and asked a lot of questions, but there was an unmistakable narrowing-of-eyes that came with it. It was as though we, having gone to such a place, were now suspect. A temporary social stigma seemed to have followed us from the church, and one of our friends even accused (jokingly), "You guys are gonna start going to this place regularly, aren't you?" Ha!