(Fl)ash Wednesday

Yesterday I returned to an Episcopal church I used to frequent when I lived in Colorado four years ago. Most weeks, I would attend a 7 a.m. Eucharist, eat breakfast at Wooglins (a favorite crunchy breakfast cafe across the street from Colorado College), then rush to New Life for staff meeting. The Eucharist was a wonderful and much-appreciated respite from the normal mega-flow of Christian experience, and I was always glad for it.
But that gladness was always coupled by a tinge of sadness. I was usually one of 5 or 6 people at the service, and my being there halved the median age of the congregation. I guess that much is to be expected, but making matters worse was that with one exception, the priests who ministered the Eucharist did so in a half-dead monotone. The liturgy itself–that is, its language, its import, its dramatic arc–was filled with life, but the priests leading us through it seemed determined to kill it.

On Wednesday, I was happy to return to the church for the Institution of the Ashes service marking the beginning of Lent. I live far north now, nearly outside of Colorado Springs and well removed from downtown, Wooglins, CC, and the Episcopal church–all things I miss a great deal. So I was excited that Ash Wednesday gave me the extra push I needed to make the long commute. And it was worth it. As I did four years ago, today I still appreciate a chance to check my megachurch spiritual life against a more historical-traditional expression of faith. The liturgy, as ever, was beautiful, convicting, and stirring. (Wooglins was as crunchy and satisfying as I remember, too.)

But if that morning Ash Wednesday service was any indication, the church has not managed to grow at all in four years. And while there was a new priest–a young, bright-looking man–he kept the monotone I had remembered the church for. He did not kill the liturgy for me–how could he?–but his delivery of it made it seem like he longed to be somewhere else.

Hmm. That was a rabbit trail. I meant to write a post about the certain pomp and circumstance of even these older, more deeply historical churches. I meant to compare the rush of art one sees as one walks through the door with the rush of sight and sound I described in the megachurch worship on Sunday. But I’ve gone in the opposite direction for now. More on the other anon.

The Megachurch Means It

Walking in late to the megachurch service is nothing like walking in late to a Wilco concert—the guitar solos, fog machines, swirling lights, and dense crowds notwithstanding. Yesterday, having safely deposited our daughter in the nursery, where she (as she later reported) “ate snacks and went to the bouncy room,” Michaela and I stepped into the auditorium a song or two into the worship service. The band was booming and several thousand people were sing-shouting “I Am a Friend of God,” including a hundred or so people near the stage bouncing up and down in what might be called a “worship pit.” The lead worshipper was worshipping with abandon and the rest of the band—electric guitar, two acoustics, keyboardist, organist, horn, drummer, deejay, and several backup singers, plus a 100-member choir—was following his lead.

When you open the door to the auditorium and your senses are flooded with all this sight and sound, it could be intimidating, and it could remind you of walking in late to Wilco, but then a gentle man with a warm smile looks you in the eye, holds up two fingers, and mouths, “Two?” and you know you’re about to be taken care of. Before the door had shut behind me, he had graciously led us his to his side and pointed out two seats just inside the aisle.

There is a lot from the day’s service that could be told—things mentioned from the platform included a local police officer’s funeral that we’d be hosting the next day, another funeral for a beloved church member who died unexpectedly last week, the pastor’s work in Israel and his expressed opportunity to “be a blessing to Arabs, Jews, Orthodox Christians, and others in the region alike” (how do those quotes never make the Times?), and more—but I would like to focus on the worship service (i.e., the song service, aka “praise and worship”).*

There’s a lot of talk out there about what’s wrong with contemporary praise and worship, how it is too much like a rock concert (too loud, too emotional, too much spectacle), or how it is not enough like a rock concert (too quiet, too emotional, too little spectacle). As someone whose argued both ways and many more, and as someone whose preferences run in the direction of the liturgical, let me, in this initial post, just say this: my megachurch worships like it means it. It is big and loud, but anyone who takes that as mere spectacle is getting away with something. The megachurch means every decibel and every waft of fog and every swirl of light.

Yesterday we sang a song by Jon Egan called “Here In Your Presence.” Like a lot of contemporary worship songs, the lyrics are simple and straightforward. But while many contemporary worship songs use their simple energies evoking feelings rather than concepts (saying, “This is the way I feel about God” rather than “This is the way God is”), Egan’s song uses simplicity to compel us toward a God who is big, great, glorious, worthy. The bridge is a crescendo-laden jam with lyrics that repeat words evoking majesty: “Wonderful. Beautiful. Glorious…” and so on, over and over again. With those words being sing-shouted all around you, cymbals crashing, guitars pounding, and at least a third of the 4,000-member congregation losing all inhibitions and dancing, bowing, looking up in wonder, forgetting about themselves and their jobscarsbillsTivostimeshares, it’s hard not to feel that what is happening here is anything less than good.

I’m familiar with concerns about megachurches—concerns among both believers and skeptics. But I’m also familiar with this, and this cannot be denied.

More anon.

* I imagine this blog should contain several entries about the megachurch worship experience, because it’s such a major part of the megachurch’s ministry, such a major part of the expression of evangelical faith today, such a major oversight in the coverage and research and writing about evangelicals in academia and the press, and such an important piece of my own faith history and current faith experience.