Mega Church Observations and Musings

[mark_a]

If I can take a step back to my days across the Tiber.
“Mega-Churches” are a current fad. After a while people tire of the music (Christian ‘rock’: SCREAM, SCREAM, SCREAM Jesus SCREAM, SCREAM, SCREAM). They also tire of the “seeker-friendly” preaching (Most MC preachers are dull as dust).
The real damage is done to small Protestant congregations who lose members to MCs. They cannot compete, nor can they afford to compete, with the smoke and mirrors.
Even though I am Catholic now, I truly feel sorry for those mainline churches that are being eaten up by these MCs.
Entertainment is not spirituality.

Not that my Catholic Church has the mega-church atmosphere, it is considered a megachurch by our local newspaper.

And we did have a liturical dance performed at least once during a mass.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I’m not a mega church fan, but that’s partly my own personal character. I’m hard of hearing and find noisy surroundings a bit of a pain. I’m also introverted and don’t like, or trust, crowds. I never have.

I also think they’re pretty good at marketing, but so is big business. The fact that a foot ball game can draw thousands of people doesn’t mean it’s evangelical. Once upon a time, the Beatles merely had to step off the plane, and a crowd of screaming females was there to greet them. But there wasn’t much spirituality in view.

That said, I think there’s a lot of room for improvement in most of the Catholic services I’ve attended. I try to go to my wife’s Baptist Church about once a month. They’re not a mega church, but they usually do a good job with the music. On the other hand, they have too many songs at times. But we go to the other extreme. If a song has four verses, we’ll often only sing two of them, particularly at the end, so everybody can “escape”.

They put more effort into the sermons than the priests do with their homilies. I suppose this is one area I feel a big disappointment in the Catholic Church, when I compare the sermons I used to get in my early Protestant years to the homilies I get now.

Her Baptist Church is far more aware of missions and evangelising. They support several missionaries. They sometimes do local evangelising. I haven’t seen a Catholic Church heavily involved in either.

Overall I think the Catholic Church is well ahead in social justice and welfare, with its thousands of schools, hospitals, aged care programs, employment agencies and the like.

On the other hand, the Protestants do a lot as well, but their efforts tend to be more parochial in some ways. And of course they often have their own individual agencies.

In summary, I’d just like to see the Catholic church put more effort into the homilies, improve their music, become a bit more welcoming to new comers, and become more evangelistic and mission focussed. A week ago another Catholic friend and I were discussing the topic of welcoming new comers, and church outreach. We both agreed the fundamentalists and the cults do a better job of making people feel part of their community than the Catholic Church does. Thus they grow whereas the Catholic Church has to run programs like “Catholics Returning Home” just to get absentee Catholics to come back to active church life.

Mega Churches? No, Room for considerable improvement? Yes.

 

[Brywan]

If a song has four verses, we’ll often only sing two of them, particularly at the end, so everybody can “escape”.

LOL Yeah, this must be a common Catholic practice. Two verses to usher you in and two verses to usher you out. When Charles Wesley was writing hymns in the 1700s, the hymn was one of the ways in which Protestant doctrine was taught and transmitted. So if you omitted one of the verses, you weren’t getting the whole story. (It’s also like cutting the last few stanzas off a poem–the poet would be livid!!! ) Today, we don’t pay attention to hymns as anything approaching a teaching moment…

**They put more effort into the sermons than the priests do with their homilies. **

In the mega-church I used to attend, they hired their senior pastor on the basis of preaching skills–they had other pastors to handle other aspects of the church administration. So he had LOTS of time to work on that sermon.

Also, keep in mind that in most evangelical/protestant “liturgies,” the proclamation of the word is the climax of the service–in the Catholic liturgy, it is the sacrifice of the Mass which is the climax–and this will happen with or without good preaching. Jesus said, "You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is these that speak of me…: This is the blueprint for what happens in the Mass–we search the scriptures in the first part of the Mass–and the scriptures lead us to Christ Himself in the liturgy of the Eucharist.

**Her Baptist Church is far more aware of missions and evangelising. **

Sadly, too true. Although in social justice areas we do well.

The parish I belong to has it’s own food pantry which operates all year long, a very active St. Vincent DePaul group for meeting the needs of the poor in our parish, and we take a special collection every week for various mission activities…we’ve just recently taken on sponsoring one of our own families in mission work overseas (that’s a VERY evangelical thing to do!!) Keep in mind that we belong to a church that spans the globe–and the Catholic Church as a whole is probably the most charitable organization on the face of the earth. (Does anyone have the statistics to back me up here?) I am also very proud, as a Catholic, that our Catholic Diocese takes on regularly the support and care of the people in our area who are VERY difficult for others to take care of. The mentally ill, the refugees, the orphans, the terminally ill–it’s not real “flashy” but it’s done patiently and consistently, day after day after day. A lot of times, people are sent to Catholic Social Services from other churches and agencies, because we already have the structure in place to care for some of these more difficult cases.

**I’d just like to see the Catholic church become a bit more welcoming to new comers, and become more evangelistic and mission focussed. **

It is very easy to just sit in Mass week after week and get in that self-absorbed rut…Maybe we need to pray for revival and then be willing to become the change we want to see…

 

[mark_a]

If a song has four verses, we’ll often only sing two of them, particularly at the end, so everybody can “escape”.

I know I leave as soon as the recessional gets to the narthex. But I do comply when I’m at a Church that asks folks to stay til the end of the song.

 

[4Squarebaby]

If a song has four verses, we’ll often only sing two of them, particularly at the end, so everybody can “escape”.

LOL Yeah, this must be a common Catholic practice. Two verses to usher you in and two verses to usher you out. When Charles Wesley was writing hymns in the 1700s, the hymn was one of the ways in which Protestant doctrine was taught and transmitted. So if you omitted one of the verses, you weren’t getting the whole story. (It’s also like cutting the last few stanzas off a poem–the poet would be livid!!! ) Today, we don’t pay attention to hymns as anything approaching a teaching moment…

)

As a child in the Methodist church I also noticed that while singing hymns, not the closing song, as the pastor would lead the choir out and he would wish everybody goodbye at the door. The Pastor would announce that we would sing verses say 1, 3, 4. I never knew why we skipped number 2:shrug:

 

[JustaServant]

I know I leave as soon as the recessional gets to the narthex. But I do comply when I’m at a Church that asks folks to stay til the end of the song.

For me it depends on the size of the parish and how far up front I am.
Leaving St. Paul’s Cathedral in Pittsburgh takes about ten minutes if you’re in the front pews.