(The Wisdom of Heschel, Abraham Joshua Heschel)
In a culture where church sanctuarys look more like the latest stage set for the Academy Awards, complete with floor to ceiling projection screens, multi-million dollar sound and theatrical lighting, and multiple television cameras strategically positioned to capture the on-stage talent and leading personalities, is it any wonder that more and more people are growing disillusioned, disappointed and disenfranchised with our Westernized version of "church?" The mega-church phenomenon, grew out of the soil of a 1980's American culture where materialism and consumerism were the cultural deitiies worshipped by a generation of baby boomers who had not yet lived through an economic crisis. The American dollar was the global King of the Mountain and everyone was determined to stake their claim.
Under the guise of becoming "seeker-friendly" church culture morphed into a consumer driven, mass-marketed machine with Starbucks coffee shops in the lobby, entertaining infomercials appearing on giant screens in the sanctuary and church worship leaders vying for the next major recording label contract. While there is much that is wonderful, relevant and worthy of applause in the mega-church model, perhaps the latest statistics on church growth are reason enough to step back and ask ourselves if it may be time to roll up the red carpet approach to worship.
While mega-church culture has much to offer, it unfortunately comes with "side effects" that we need to be aware of. Like the commercials we are all tired of seeing heralding the latest wonder drug and then ending with an announcer speedtalking their way through an alarming list of side effects that are perhaps worse than the ailment we are looking to treat, so too mega-church culture has left us with an alarming list of side effects that are unfortunately causing many people to change the channel in their search for genuine spirituality.
In this blog series: "Finding God In..." we will take a look at the many different and perhaps surprising, places where we come in contact with that presence which overwhelms us and speaks to a place deep within our soul that lets us know there is a presence so much greater than our ability to understand or comprehend, that reassures us of our connection to the eternal, that somehow communicates that we are not alone down here in the "muck and the mire" of our lives and that there is a meaning to our stories, to our suffering, to our triumphs and our tragedies that perhaps transcends our ability to neatly categorize or label. God's presence extends far beyond the sound-insulated ceilings of our contemporary mega-churches and the spired ceilings of our historic cathedrals. It will not be contained, yet it beckons us to be found.
Next blog in this series: "Finding God In A Kayak"
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Where have you felt God's presence outside of a church building?
