Megachurched Chapter One- DeMainlining

Here is the first chapter of my book, Megachurched. Please feel free to comment on the piece and let me know how I can make it stronger. You can also visit megachurched.com/wordpress and provide your email for updates, articles and survey covering each chapter that is released. Thanks for the read!!!

Clouds of dust fill the air as children whiz by on four-wheelers. To my left, two kids giggle wildly as their tiny bodies plunge down a steep hill, the Slip N Slide propelling them down fifty feet, where a trampoline awaits. I sit on a folding chair, watching a heated match of Cornhole, a popular outdoor game that involves throwing bean-bags into a small hole carved out of wooden boards. The older folks sit under the canopy, catching up, telling stories from times past.

In retrospect, it makes sense that our megachurch journey begins at a family reunion. After all, what is a church really but a large, extended family? In the case of a megachurch, it is an even larger, even more extended family.

However, all I can think of at the moment is, “Why am I here?” Didn’t I come to check out churches? So why am I sipping on a daiquiri, watching a pair of cousins solidify their ten-game Cornhole winning streak?

This is not the reunion of my own family, I should mention. An old friend recently moved in with his brother to a house in Westchester, located 40 minutes outside of Philadelphia. Since we were traveling from Massachusetts to Florida, I figured we could make a pit-stop and pay him a visit.

So here we are, in the beginning stages of a trip that will later have us staying in roach motels, changing in the back seats of cars and eating more borderline edible continental breakfasts than any human should.

But for now, I am comfortable and full as a tick. Speaking of ticks, I am afraid one might have made its way into my clothes from the camper where we slept last night.

While the reunion was a fun way to begin, it was a conversation I had later in the night that put the experience in proper context. The night was winding down, most had gone to bed. Beer cans littered the lawn, while the smell of exhausted gas from the four-wheelers filled the air. Brian, who we were visiting, had gone to bed, as had my travel buddies. This left me and Brian’s brother hanging out in the driveway, fighting the urge to sleep.

Conversation shifted to my project. After explaining the basic premise — at that point, in semi-coherent English- he leaned back in thought. He mentioned his own childhood, being brought up a Catholic, the influence of which had disappeared in his adult years. This presented a problem when raising his two kids. “I want them to have good values, like I had growing up Catholic,” he said. “But how can I do that when I don’t practice it myself?”

His concern stemmed from the reality that his kids grew up in one of the wealthiest suburbs in the nation, with good schools and being surrounded by successful families. The kids got “everything they wanted” in terms of possessions but he feared that this level of ease could have damaging effects.

For if you are used to getting everything you want, what happens when an obstacle stands in the way? Are we consuming or are we being consumed?

It is this uneasy relationship between religious thought and modern culture that has come to a head with the rise of the megachurch. Far from the castigating those who indulge in our consumerist culture, many of these churches encourage and even take part in our marketplace dominated world.

Did our culture create megachurches or do megachurches enforce our culture? Where did they begin and how did they grow so quickly? In order to answer these questions, we have to look back a hundred years or so to trace the beginnings of the megachurch movement.

Although they became more visible across the country over the past two decades, megachurches are not an entirely new phenomenon. Since the founding of the colonies, when disgruntled Englishmen came to the shores seeking religious freedom, Americans possessed a tendency to supersize their religion.

A separate book could be written on the mass religious gatherings during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, some of which will be briefly detailed in this chapter. However, it isn’t necessarily the size of megachurches that make them so intriguing. Rather, it is the way that modern styles of worship are redefining Protestantism and religion as a whole.

The story of the American megachurch follows two particular developments: Competition and the decline of mainline denominations.

Megachurches thrived because “Americans liked to experiment” (Allitt, 259) with their religion, just as they have with their businesses, technology and culture. Since its inception to its expansion westward, an entrepreneurial spirit, driven by the need to compete, seized America. This is most evident in the domination of the free-market ethos that drives the American economy.

The second theme that emerges from the success of megachurches is the lessening influence of mainline denominations, such as the Lutherans, Catholics, Presbyterians, and Methodists, among others. Most of these denominations saw major declines over the past two decades. As the mainlines decline, more Americans seek out Non-Denominational churches, shedding their family’s denominational ties. It appears that in various aspects of society, Americans strive to carve out their own niche in society and are more skeptical of labeling themselves than the generation before them. Witness commercials, with their appeals to be an “individual” and you will see the desire of young Americans to break away from the traditions of their parents. We are getting farther and farther from the idyllic scenes of the nuclear-family 1950s. Megachurches proved adept at foreseeing this trend, with many of the fastest growing churches either shedding their denomination or disguising their denominational ties. With this, they maintain the image of individuality that modern worshippers find so appealing.

This mainline decline is an outgrowth of the 1960s, an era that stressed individualism as a backlash to the groupthink of the 50s. Whereas mainline churches in the early part of the twentieth century emphasized a strict form of liturgy, these new non-denominational churches present religion with increasingly unique and innovative methods. These young, individualistic thinkers took to a style of faith that connected with their rebellious attitudes.

Baby boomers, Generation X and millennials are frequently targeted by modern megachurches. Mixing an easy to follow faith with tech-savvy, entertaining sermons proved interesting to those generations conditioned to avoid the dry, sartorial, liturgical displays of religions past.

In tracing the history of megachurches in America, it becomes apparent that every trend in religion has coincided with dominant cultural attitudes of the period. Modern megachurches emphasize entertainment and technology because that is what our culture values. Past megachurches varied based on the attitudes of their particular culture.

The ability of popular churches to take pieces of culture and use them to promote their message is what ties together the history of the megachurch. At the same time, churches that refuse to change with the times tend to be left in the dust, no matter how truthful or sincere they may be.

The Church Marketplace

Prior to the twentieth century the concept of a megachurch looked much different than it does now. Mass gatherings occurred, but rarely were they contained within a single building, but were rather held outdoors, the scene appearing more like a music festival than a modern church.

These mass religious gatherings were termed revivals, where preachers spoke in public commons, traveling through different areas of the country to evangelize their word. It wasn’t until the early twentieth century that an actual megachurch would be erected.

Many of these revivals featured tactics that we commonly see in today’s megachurches, including the appeals to emotion and a concert-like atmosphere that served to whip up frenzies of excitement among the attendees. Under the tutelage of Billy Graham and others, revivals attracted thousands of followers and appeared to win the ever present competition among religions in the United States. Much like our free market regulates itself on an inherent system of competition, the religious landscape functions and evolves in the same manner.

Among modern day Christianity, we still see a fierce competition between the established mainline branches and the more recently emerging Non-Denominational, Seeker Friendly churches. Whereas the mainlines are now perceived as being overly dogmatic and chained to tradition, the evangelicalism of the Non-Denominationals takes on a more American, entrepreneurial spirit.

Because of a lack of a centralized hierarchy, Evangelicalism can take any number of forms, each approaching faith differently. For Americans raised in an era of unparalleled economic growth, such as the Baby Boomers, this sort of DIY religion fits perfectly into their culture.

Much like America’s capitalist economy, churches exist in a market where religious customers seek the best bang for their buck. Far from being passive institutions, churches actively seek out new congregants in order to grow. The more successful churches are able to tap into the mainstream, replicating our culture with the purpose of attracting the unchurched.

It is tempting to see this as a modern-day phenomenon, a natural progression in our hyper-competitive world, as capitalism has achieved a stranglehold in much of the world. Yet this competition existed since the first colonists set foot in our land seeking religious freedom. Religions were founded and multiplied, creating a distinct religious market, far from England’s system of a national church. This religious innovation continued throughout our nation’s history, bringing along the emergence of the mainlines, which came to dominate for two hundred years.

DEMAINLINING

The word Christian holds a multitude of meanings, as the faith is continually evolving. Most know the connection between Christians and Christ, or belief in the story of Jesus as resurrected messiah. But delve in further and Christianity reveals a Pandora’s Box of different sects, traditions, and beliefs. At least among the younger generation, who are largely growing up without denominational ties, the difference between a Lutheran and a Methodist is trivial. After all, they all follow the same book.

Once upon a time in America, mainline denominations were a signifier of one’s identity. Not long ago, it was considered taboo for a Presbyterian to marry a Catholic, or any other number of cross-denominational partnerships.

The changing nature of American thinking contributed greatly to the decline of mainlines. Americans are now less likely to adopt the religion of their parents, instead preferring to choose their own path on their spiritual quest.

Gone are the days when a hierarchal central command tells us their truth and we accept it. Religion, along with politics and other areas of culture, were largely decentralized throughout the 20th century. At the same time, religion has become more of an inward experience rather than a communal rite.

Unfortunately the mainline denominations, who still fill an important void for many, took the brunt of this decentralized thinking. As a result, many people turned their backs on the church and embraced the more free-thinking, modern megachurches, which veer towards Evangelical or non-denominational faiths.

Rather than pin hopes on Americans returning to these churches on their own, some mainlines mimicked the tactics found in high-growth evangelical churches. Others scrapped the denominational name altogether. For example Granger Community Church, which is a Methodist church in Granger, Indiana, contains no explicit evidence of denomination anywhere in the church. There are no signs on displays or any other markers that would give the visitor any idea that it is a Methodist church. Authors Scott Thumma and Dave Travis credit this strategy for fueling the view that all megachurches lack denominations, claiming that “because these churches hide or at least downplay their denominational label, it is not surprising how the perception that most megachurches are non-denominational has arisen.”

Yet there is another aspect to the demainlining trend, one that has the possibility of also affecting the rapid growth of megachurches and evangelism in general. With the best intentions in mind, mainline denominations fit themselves into the larger culture, often taking sides with political causes. This embrace of culture turned out to be the undoing of many of these churches, as many people realized that they could achieve the same political ends without the church, often more effectively. At the same time some churches doctrine watered down their doctrine with each incoming divisive political issue. After all, no one wants to be part of a church whose beliefs do not align with your own, whether it is the 1920s temperance movement of the Methodists or the current debate over allowing homosexual pastors.

The recent history of Methodism provides a good example of the hazards of becoming too involved in worldly debates.

Methodism and Social Action

Around the turn of the 20th century, Methodists carried the torch of social change in America, as well as representing a clear post-millennial vision towards the world. Methodist social action came into its own in the 1930s when they advocated for racial unity at a time when America was still very much segregated. The battle against segregation was waged through the efforts of young Methodists to desegregate church camps like Mt. Sequoyah in Arkansas and Lake Junaluska in South Carolina. However, victories over desegregation did not come into fruition until the 1940s when black preachers were finally admitted to speak on Methodist campgrounds.

Harold Ewing was a prominent radio host whose show “Church of the Air” was popular among young Methodists. He encouraged the delegates to the National Conference of Methodist Youth to endorse such liberal policies as nuclear disarmament and income inequality in America.

Due to these far left views at a time when anti-communist anxiety ran high, the Methodist church faced its first major backlash. This was the first crack in the solid foundation of Methodism that would eventually lead to its decline.

Watchdog groups put pressure on Methodist leaders to purge its more radical leaders. As a result, Methodist ministers who supported labor unions and lobbied for desegregation were removed from their posts.

Elation over these social victories led to more intense lobbying over the direction of the Methodist church. Many led the church as they tired of the constant battles over social issues, preferring a more raw, emotional worship experience. New avenues opened up, offering this stripped-down, gospel-based teaching, which especially attracted the youth, who held little interest in the politics of their day.

In the mid 1950s young Christians flocked to Youth For Christ gatherings, led by a young, charismatic evangelical preached named Billy Graham. Graham’s upbeat message of regeneration through Christ, along with his entertaining revivals, grabbed the energetic youth away from established denominations. The kids related to the emphasis on personal choice and the rock star-like aura of Graham.

To compete with YFC, the Methodists launched the Quadrennial Emphasis on Youth in 1953. While not as attractively named as its evangelical counterpart, the Emphasis on Youth sought the same demographics and enthusiasm.

While Methodists picked up the social change banner and veered leftward in their ideology, Graham’s group of excited youth looked inward. Graham, who happened to be militantly anti-communist, tended to leave politics at the front door, preferring an emotional, personal relationship with Jesus Christ. While the Methodists became bogged down with the social issues of the day, Graham attracted more and more through his less cumbersome version of faith.

Church attendance grew substantially in the 1940s and into the early 1950s, coinciding with the decade of the Ozzie and Harriet style nuclear family. It also signaled the last decade where behavior would be dominated by duty and tradition. These two qualities were endemic to the major denominations, who grew through family ties and the perception that positively impacting society was a duty under God’s law.

But as the decade winded down and the turbulent 60s approached, Americans took a note from Billy Graham and turned introspective, aiming to better themselves rather than society. The 60s brought a sea change not only to politics but also to spiritual thinking.

The Real 60s

Contrary to the dominant view that the 1960s were solely dominated by hippie culture and the “drop out” generation, the decade saw an explosion in religious faith. Fringe religions, some eastern-influenced, grew along with Jehovah’s Witnesses and Pentecostals.

While the religions varied, most contained one uniting factor: The focus on self. The 60s were a time of self-realization, where therapy became part of popular culture. The self was now king. Religions that sought to change the world looked increasingly less relevant in this landscape.

Yet this did not stop the Methodists from continuing their quest for heaven on Earth. With their past victories as encouragement, the church returned to its earlier effort to rid the country of racism by supporting a federally mandated civil rights bill. Official segregation had ceased, yet the church continued to fight structural iniquities within the system. This battle would prove to be the most arduous, and costly, for the Methodist church.

Martin Luther King Jr. is rightfully given heaps of credit for leading the Civil Rights era. Yet it can’t be overstated how much mobilization and impact the Methodists provided prior to King’s ascendency. King thrust himself to the forefront of the movement after connecting the need for social change with biblical imperatives while sitting in a Birmingham prison . So it was only natural that these two would join forces to fight for political progress in the name of God.

On July 2, 1964 the Civil Rights Act was signed by President Johnson and made into law. Methodists around the country celebrated their victory over what they viewed as an overtly racist system. But rather than sit on their laurels, young Methodists sought out the next battleground for social change. Perhaps due to the exhaustion of the effort, many average Methodists began to grow weary of the leftist ideology of the church.

In the “Juvenilization of the Church” Thomas Bergler documents the sudden exodus within the Methodist church following the civil rights victory. After youth leaders further convinced a “vocal minority of young people to embrace the liberal political agenda,” it left less radical Methodists “alienated” at the attempt to “create a mass movement of Christian social progressives.” As congregations become more politicized, we could possibly see the same effect occurring within conservative churches today.

While the more traditional members left due to discomfort with the church’s political agenda, other more radical members left for the opposite reason. These Christian progressives were disappointed with the slow pace of action. They eventually found that they did not need the church to exercise activism and many felt they would be better off if they loosed themselves from the church altogether. As Ross Douthat states in Bad Religion, “Why would you need to wash down your left-wing convictions with a draft of communion wine when you could take the activism straight and do something else with your weekends?”

And that is exactly what they did.

Around the same period Presbyterians faced their own inter-faith fighting while deliberating over whether to allow female ministers into the congregation. In later years, Presbyterians found themselves in another quandary over allowing homosexuals to serve in the ministry. The hot button political issue divided the faith and resulted in diminished numbers.

Richard Cimino and Don Lattin downplay the disagreement over gay rights as a major factor in the mainline exodus. Rather they ascribe the dissatisfaction to the “conservative frustration over denomination politics and church government.” It appears that the rigid hierarchy of the mainline churches contributed to a lack of faith in the church. Similar to conservative’s skepticism at having the federal government holding too much control, these same people disliked being commanded to a adopt political views that they did not necessarily agree.

So it is no accident that many of those who turned away from mainline churches ended up becoming part of a Non-Denominational or Inter-Denominational church, where no institutional hierarchy existed. Much like the distrust in a hemorrhaging federal government bureaucracy, conservative churchgoers found themselves more comfortable in an organization with no top-down infrastructure.

By 1970, only four percent of churches considered themselves “Non-Denominational” according to data compiled by the General Social Survey. The number of self-identified Non-Denominational churches increased to fifteen percent as of 2005.

It is impossible to say whether the shedding of denominational identity was a response to dissatisfaction with church bureaucracy or simply a stroke of good luck. But it appears as though megachurch leaders have an astute intuitive sense of what religious seekers are looking for.

Christian historian Bill Leonard cites Joel Osteen as contributing to the trend of “nondenominalizing” Christianity into the 21st century. He writes about Osteen’s sense of “traditional” versus “experimental” approaches to the faith in the way that the preacher continually adapts his methods to fit the modern times.

Leonard appears to both fear and welcome the likes of Osteen into the fold. He warns that this fluid Christianity can produce a “an illustration of the captivity of evangelicalism to a form of popular religion more akin to American enterprise than Christian theology.” Later in the article, he calls Osteen a “motivational speaker for Jesus.”

Yet Leonard also acknowledges that Osteen may hold the key to where Christianity is heading. Perhaps religion needs to adapt in order to stay relevant and attract the largest number of followers. As mainlines continue isolating themselves, Leonard proposes that they “minimize those relationships” among the new crop of unaffiliated Christians.

Forefathers of the Megachurch

One of the first instances of a megachurch would be the great gatherings of Lyman Beecher in the 1820s. Beecher, father of Uncle Tom’s Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe, became a symbol of social change by preaching on subjects such as intemperance and the abolition of slavery.

Stowe preached during a time of truly Puritanical thinking, where hard work and self-control were valued above all else. His speeches were angry and forceful, casting the threat of Hellfire towards those who turned their backs on God. He begins his Six Sermons On Intemperance by declaring the frightening idea that “of all the ways to hell, which the feet of deluded mortals tread, that of the intemperate is the most dreary and terrific.” Beecher used the pulpit to scare his congregants into changing their indulgent habits and acquired a dedicated following through his social activism and end-times theology. Beecher’s sentiments reflected a man who says in his autobiography that he “knew that the punishment of the antichristian powers were just at hand.” Not merely seeking members in seats, Beecher sought to save souls from the impending apocalypse.

Around the time of Stowe’s revivals, the overwhelming popularity of Deism and Unitarianism, which Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin belonged, became a pressing concern to Evangelists. They saw these emerging religions threatening Christianity due to Unitarian inclusiveness. When Calvinists and Trinitarians united to oppose Unitarianism, Beecher was pleased that the groups were “merging their common differences, and uniting in one phalanx against a common enemy.” To fight back against these new forms of worship, Beecher sought to reestablish the tenets of faith. In doing so, he put the fear of hell into those with any curiosity about Deism or Unitarianism.

Stowe’s virulent sermons are a far cry from the easy-going aphorisms of Joel Osteen or John Avanzini. Nowadays we would ignore a preacher haranguing us about Hell for three hours. We want to feel good about ourselves in this era of good feelings. But in Stowe’s day, life was dominated by the constant threat that you were a footstep away from eternal Hellfire.

Beecher and Finny spoke with a premillennialist mindset. Premillenialists believe that humans have the duty to improve society and strive for a Heaven on Earth. Only at that point will the Messiah return. As a result, pre-millennialists spoke out on social issues and urged their flock to affect positive change throughout society.

Methodists and Presbyterians are modern examples of pre-millennialism thinking. These sects took part in the twentieth century battles over Civil Rights and Prohibition, among many others. There are also many prominent evangelical premillennialists today, with such high profile figures such as Ronald Sider and Jim Wallis, who are in the forefront of modern issues such as universal healthcare and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Despite their efforts, the trend of pre-millennialist thinking shrunk in favor of post-millennialist theology, where mankind’s actions have no effect on the end times. These belief, encompassed by the Baptists and Evangelicals, stress faith over works because God will reward those who have faith as opposed to those who attempted to better the world.

Most, but not all, successful megachurch leaders in the 20th century contain a post-millennialist bend to their teachings. This resulted in less calls for social change and more emphasis on a personal relationship with Jesus.

While the basic tenets of Beecher and Finney’s belief eroded, they paved the way for future megachurch leaders to attract massive crowds and deliver an innovative form of religion.

Megachurches In Early 20th Century

In the 20th century, megachurches situated their place as a unique expression of faith in the new millennium. They are a perfect compliment to the times, which have seen unprecedented growth in nearly every aspect of life. Houses grew, government grew, our lips, biceps and breasts grew; even our brains and waistlines grew. It is self-evident that churches would also upgrade.

And that’s precisely what they did.

According to megachurch expert Ed Stetzer, the number of megachurches doubles every ten years. Currently, the number of Protestant megachurches in America has grown to at least 1,200. This still only represents half of one percent of all American churches. However, ten percent of all churchgoers attend a megachurch, giving these churches an outsize influence on the direction of Christianity.

At a glance it would appear that this trend is simply a natural progression from small to large church. Except this is not the first time that megachurches have dominated the Christian landscape.

Interestingly enough, most if not all of the previous periods of megachurching have occurring during years of tremendous economic growth in America. On the downside, these periods have usually ended with some kind of economic disaster, including the most recent period, concluding with the 2008 housing collapse.

One of the first instances of a preacher attaining Megachurch status was Dwight Moody, who preached in a number of US cities before settling in Chicago, where his Moody Church still remains and maintains services of about two-thousand congregants.

According to Lawrence Moore in Selling God, “No one understood better than he [Moody] did that religion had become a business” and that Moody realized “success in religion depended on sound and innovative business practices.” This melding of religion and business would blaze the path for the likes of Hybels and other successful Megachurch leaders.

Moody began his crusade in Boston, where he joined Boston’s Congregational Church and the local YMCA branch. He later moved to Chicago to become a boot and shoe repairman, presumably where he developed his business acumen.

In 1872 Moody established himself by organizing popular religious revivals, using newspaper advertising to attract participants. Soon after, Moody built the 8,000 seat Moody Church through the use of funds he raised from the same advertising networks.

In addition to his own revivals, Moody attracted followers to a 10,000 seat tabernacle in Philadelphia, created from the remains of an old train depot purchased by department store magnate John Wanamaker. From this experience, Wanamaker later summed up his approach in an article entitled “Bringing Business Efficiency Into Christian Service” in which he extolled the efforts of Moody and others by using modern business methods of advertising and marketing to attract followers.

With a nod to the modern day Megachurches’ use of entertainment, Moody used spectacle as a method to attract secular folk into his stimulating performances. Moody’s services included five hundred person choruses and the preacher’s own unique gift for storytelling.

Moody’s goal was not to drive people away from their old congregations, but rather to beat secular culture at its own game. As we will also see with modern Megachurches in chapter three, Moody “sought to compete with commercial culture,” attempting to steal the public’s attention away from mindless entertainment and attract them to a life filled with God’s word.

A contemporary of Moody’s, Billy Sunday brought an exciting brand of revivalism that hit home with his populist approach. Sunday was a former professional baseball player, giving him an added credential as an all-American Protestant.

Sunday began his revivals in the 1890s, but did not begin to see any financial rewards until nearly twenty years later, when he sold hymn books at sermons. Sunday also introduced the concept of selling his materials in the concession areas of his speaking engagements, an omnipresent practice in today’s religious scene.

Sunday’s particular brand of faith was one of a masculine, take-no-prisoners type of gospel message which encouraged the inerrancy of the Bible. He led a return to conservative moral values, along with a healthy dose of patriotism thrown in, particularly during the World War I years.(Preacher, 16)

Rather than concern himself with matters of theology, Sunday stressed that becoming a true Christian involved “courage, deep faith and a test of the will.” His revival meetings attained legendary status due to Sunday’s frantic style of speaking and his acrobatics, both verbal and physical, which gained a fanatical adherence by his followers. (Preacher-p.17)

Not all were so enamored by the insurgence of Sunday’s revival movement. In 1909, Sunday was attacked in Springfield, Illinois by a man who felt Sunday’s denial of theology was equal to heresy.

Baltimore Sun writer H.L.Mencken, not one to shy away from a fight, took potshots at Sunday by calling the preacher’s performances “repulsive” and antithetical to progress in the US.

The disagreements over Sunday’s tactics set up a battle that continues into today’s religious landscape; that of intellectuals versus the faithful. While Sunday’s detractors decried his disinterest in scholarly Biblical inquiry, his followers saw this quality as making the man more authentic in his Gospel message.

The Arrival of the Megachurch

Arguably, the first modern megachurch was launched by Aimee Semple McPherson with her Angelus temple in Los Angeles’ Echo Park neighborhood. The daughter of a Canadian farmer, McPherson fell in love with Pentecostalism after marrying her first husband, who later died, but not before imbibing his wife deep in Christian thought. McPherson escaped her second husband and toured the east coast, attracting crowds during tent revivals. She became known for her emotional speaking, theatrics, as well as her supposed healing powers.

One night, while kneeling by her ill daughter’s bed, McPherson received a message from God, telling her that she was promised a “little home in Los Angeles, California.” Without a pause, McPherson relocated her family to L.A., where she found a perfect plot of land in Echo Park. Remarkably, she was able to raise $250,000 in funds to start up the church, most contributions coming from the throngs of believers she gained through her tent revival travels.

McPherson constructed many of the design elements within the church, including the stained-glass windows and twenty-five large doors to avoid the overwhelming crowds she faced while on the revival circuit. She also installed the “500 Room,” designed for parishioners to speak in tongues peacefully without fear of alienating others.

Yet the church’s design only hinted at the innovations that McPherson brought to the Christian world. Her services were characterized by featuring choirs numbering in the hundreds, skits starring farm animals, along with McPherson’s unique brand of theatrical preaching. Her style was one of hysteric spiritualism. She danced, sung, healed, spoke in tongues. Soon the crowds grew so intense that the church needed a megaphone to control the hoards of curious Christians wanting a taste of this new sensation.

McPherson lived a luxurious life, characterized by a mansion featuring a bathroom with golden fixtures, among other indulgences. But she also became known as a steward of the neighborhood. During the Depression years, Angelus Temple ran a successful food bank which fed more people than any other organization in Los Angeles. She even devised a secret compartment where needy congregants could pull a secret lever and retrieve coins for a trolley ride.

Unfortunately McPherson’s story ends in infamy, as we’ll see in detail in chapter seven. She grew to love the spotlight, enjoying her spare time with various celebrities and becoming a tabloid target in her own right. These relationships resulted in a number of scandals which made McPherson fodder for gossip publications. She died in 1944 from an overdose of prescription pills, her soul and body exhausted from the constant public scrutiny.

Aimee’s son Rolf took over the church following her death and instituted a $500,000 renovation to the property. The church still stands in the same Echo Park address.

McPherson’s style and focus on theatrics blazed the path to the modern megachurch, incorporating entertainment into the spiritual experience. More than any other figure of that period, she proved that a preacher could become a type of celebrity and compete with the secular world’s attention span.

Yet McPherson’s message paralleled Moody’s in that it focused on deep faith and trust in God. It wasn’t until after World War II that the US religious landscape turned to the self rather than heavenward. While not the first, Robert Schuller could be given credit for popularizing this approach.

Most point to Southern California’s Robert Schuller and his Crystal Cathedral as the starting point of the modern American megachurch. And indeed Schuller’s easygoing approach and philosophy that Jesus “bore the cross to sanctify your self-esteem” is reminiscent of the style of a Bill Hybels or, more particularly, practitioners of the “Prosperity Gospel” such as Joel Osteen.

Schuller began as a standard preacher in Iowa, filling his sermons with serious theological questions to near empty rooms. He became discouraged due to his low numbers and wondered how he could gain more interest in the community. Asking some of his congregations about the problem, Schuller heard over and over again that they wanted to hear sermons that were relevant to their everyday lives rather than scholarly, esoteric speeches.

From then on, Schuller changed his style, incorporating material that everyday could relate. He relocated to California and preached from a drive-in movie theater, where he slowly gained popularity for his gentle brand of preaching that emphasized the connection between self confidence and faith in God.

Schuller’s success led to the erection of Crystal Cathedral, a towering glass structure in Orange Grove, California. He also became one of the first preachers to conquer television when he launched the enormously popular Hour of Power program in 1970.

From Beecher’s warnings of hellfire to Schuller’s encouraging words of self-esteem, Christianity successfully reversed course into the self and led to a new direction for innovative religious leaders to conquer the increasingly secularizing world.

Much like Wanamaker’s observations fifty years earlier, pastors ran their congregations like businesses, utilizing mass media and advertising to grow their flock. Without the mastery of various media and technology, the megachurch would not exist. Technology enabled churches to extend their reach beyond Sunday morning.

Bill Hybels, lead pastor of Willow Creek, makes no excuses that his church runs in the style of a modern corporation. Hybels developed the idea of Willow Creek in 1975 when he surveyed the surrounding area of Chicago in order to compile information on what repelled people from church. The survey featured questions such as “What do you find boring about church?” which provided Hybels with an enlightened view to what was behind the lack of churchgoing among young Americans. He dubbed these people “Unchurched Harrys” or “Unchurched Marys”. Hybels made it his mission to get these “Harrys” and “Marys” back into church pews.

Except it turned out that Harry and Mary also didn’t like church pews, so these later turned into padded, metal folding chairs.

The open-ended, innovative style of Willow Creek was just what these seekers were looking for. No elitist, high-minded leader telling you what to do. Rather, the congregation themselves would determine how they worshipped. This was democracy in religious form.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise that in an era dominated by media and entertainment, megachurch seekers wanted an exciting worship experience punctuated by…media and entertainment.

Hybels heeded these calls, installing a state of the art sound system and a killer band to begin each mass.

Best of all, most of the seeker churches modeled after Willow Creek had no interest in politics of the day. Rather, the churches preferred a stripped-down focus on maintaining a relationship with Jesus and promoted the idea that “grace, not works” would ensure a trip to Heaven after this world ended. To a group of individuals who tired of their past church’s meddling in politics, this seemed the perfect antidote. No longer would the church make demands for social change or good works, at least not in an overt, forceful way.

The church ditched the culture of political engagement, but they embraced the culture of pop. Seeker churches took an obvious influence from the outside consumer world. Church buildings were modeled after the familiar characteristics of a shopping mall to imitate the places where we feel most comfortable. In his book Seeker Churches, Kimon Howland Sargeant states that “One could argue that the American religion of self-expression and lifestyle finds its highest expression at the mall.” By mimicking these vaunted halls of self expression, megachurch pastors ignited this sense of individualism and personalized power.

The “church as mall” appealed to the unchurched since it mirrored the world they navigated everyday. There were no uncomfortable silences, no esoteric rituals, no drab lighting. Best of all, there was lots of choice and usually lots of items to purchase. The switch from community church to megachurch was officially under way.