The Worship We Seek

First Presbyterian Church, Lowville, NY

While Christian worship attendance continues to decline decade by decade in the U.S., the percentage of Christian Americans who attend megachurches continues to increase.  (A megachurch is defined as a church that has a worship attendance of 2,000+ on an average Sunday morning).  Today, more than half of all worshippers attend worship in megachurches.  Recent research conducted by a team of University of Washington researchers reports (here) that the nature, style, and especially emotional content of megachurch worship are the primary reasons for the growing popularity of megachurch worship.

Worship in America's largest churches is generally informal, emotional, satisfying, joyful, well-led, well-done, and technologically competent.  The message promotes a superficial theology, conventional moral standards, and a positive outlook on life.  According to the research, people come away from worship services at megachurches feeling that their spiritual needs had been met, again especially on an emotional level.  The researchers observe that there is a drug-like quality to megachurch worship, but it is a "good drug."  They also note that the megachurches have huge resources for conducting worship, which give them a significant advantage over smaller congregations.

It is not quite true, however, that smaller congregations cannot compete.  Lowville, NY, does not have a megachurch, but there is today a church group that is apparently growing rapidly, attracting younger families, and offers a worship experience something like the megachurch experience.  It has dynamic, attractive worship leadership, sings energetic songs, and seems to capture something of the drug-like quality of megachurch worship.  Thus, the megachurch experience is within the grasp of some smaller congregations as well—indeed, all megachurches started out as small churches.

The flip side is this.  Such churches tend to be anti-gay, anti-abortion, and conservative.  They may be strong on conventional morals, but that does not mean that they are strong on justice.  And while a growing number of church goers prefer them, the numbers of church growers are dwindling.  Growing numbers of Americans reject them and all other forms of worship as well.

The challenge that haunts smaller, less conservative churches is to discover forms of worship that are less superficial, more thought-filled, and also emotionally satisfying.  The drug-like quality of mega-worship is not necessarily a bad thing in and of itself, and it obviously is attractive to a growing percentage of the declining church population.  One does wonder, however, how much it has to do (or fails to have to do) with Christ.  All of us who worship him have to keep in his own words as quoted in Matthew, "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?' Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers.'" (Matthew 7:21-23, NRSV)

What some of us are looking for is worship that is emotionally satisfying, joyful, theologically insightful & challenging, inspirational, and built on a deeper appreciation of social justice.