Where’s the Community in this Atlanta Megachurch?
Every Sunday morning across churches from all denominations, the pastor will come out after the worship band and say, “Alright everyone take a seat and introduce yourself to your neighbors.” Usually, people do a fully 360 turn around, introducing themselves and shaking hands with anyone they didn’t arrive with. Pastors do this to create community, something the Bible encourages. And it’s one of the major benefits to being a Christian — find a local church and they’ll provide ample ways to get involved or life groups to join. It’s a fundamental experience with church, and the easiest way to make friends.
But when the pastor said that on my visit to Passion City Church, no one greeted each other. They quickly sat down or offered a small smile to say hello. Which was odd to me, it was the first time I’ve been in a church where people weren’t welcoming to newcomers. At every church I’ve been to, they have a “New Here?” table. Often they’ll give visitors a goodie bag with a free bible, pens and a nifty pamphlet visually articulating all the wonderful ways to get involved. Like volunteer opportunities or life groups to join based off age or your neighborhood. But these elements were absent from this megachurch.
I came, sat and left completely alone.
Megachurches have completely altered the contemporary Christian culture. These Evangelical churches with over 2,000 people in attendance on a Sunday morning, are the opposite of the stained glass cathedrals where this religion used to inhabit. According to The Atlanta Journal Constitution, this church used to be a Sam’s Club. Even though they gutted the inside, replacing stock shelves with plush movie theatre chairs, dark interiors with backlit crosses, there’s a leftover coldness in the very bones of this space. But that doesn’t seem to be a problem with the church goers, since this place is packed every weekend with more locations continuing to pop up as far north as D.C.
The only difference between this church, and all the small churches across the nation, is just the size and number of attendees. They all have a similar formula. Worship, prayer, a
message preaching the gospel and ways to get involved by serving or joining a life group. I assumed, this would be like any other church experience, just at a larger scale. But I was continually hit with roadblocks on how to get involved.
However, I was determined to break through this community group barrier. On ground, there were no resources. And the website was even worse, a perfect mimic to its physical counterpart of vague language, confusing directions and no concrete information on how to get involved or who to contact. Faulty links, no names and no help button.
“Nothing about it was accessible, so I never even got the chance to join even when I really wanted to,” said Randi Thompson. This is not an isolated experience. Every smaller local church I visited after, I sat next to people who used to go to Passion, but stopped because they could never get involved or the church felt too impersonal.
Community is how megachurches make “a big church feel small.” And while they can be experts at expanding and getting people in their doors, they’re falling short of establishing genuine community. When I left Passion City Church, it felt no different than going to a midnight movie premiere by myself, just a little more isolating.
