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American megachurches are thriving by poaching flocks
51–60 of 93 posts
Re: American megachurches are thriving by poaching flocks
#52Curious if members of HN attend any of these megachurches. If so, what is the draw?
I grew up in a megachurch but I wouldn’t call it a “megachurch”. It (Manchester UMC) is large at about 2500 members but still does the services in the same format as it has been doing since as early as I can remember. However, I have been to a couple of “megachurches” with that style of service and can comment on the appeal.
Services at a megachurch have almost a laid back rock concert type atmosphere. There is a lot of contemporary music played and everything else is made to be as “soulful” and engaging as possible. It’s a very unique atmosphere, but the appeal is much the same as something like a country music concert. The services are a whole production.
The other advantage big churches have (and I did see this with my church growing up) is that larger communities make a lot of things easier. It’s easier to form service missions, bible groups, youth activities, etc, because it’s much easier to reach a critical mass when you have such a large congregation to pull from.
https://manchesterumc.org/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_United_Methodist_...
Re: American megachurches are thriving by poaching flocks
#53Consider checking out your local UU (Unitarian Universalist) church if one exists. They're one of the few positioned to poach from the huge flock of "nones" without any change in belief. UU is basically the church of be excellent to each other , yet whenever I go it's almost entirely old people. It's fun to chat and drink coffee with them, but I wonder where all the younger atheists/humanists are.
> I wonder where all the younger atheists/humanists are Home, sleeping. As an atheist, this is a challenge if you’re looking for community. These religious communities are organized around some common understanding of whatever sacred text they claim as truth. But it’s hard to feel as connected over disbelief and scepticism. Or maybe it’s all a multifactorial “Bowling Alone” problem that crosses religious and secular…
My observation of UU is that it's not really about disbelief and skepticism like an atheist meetup. It's more the liberal/progressive ideology wrapped in a church interface. They talk a lot about peace and love, and fighting stuff like climate change, fascist ideas, and inequality.
Since I moved back to the Midwest (not sure if that was a terrible idea), UU feels like a microcosm of the Bay Area.
Maybe the "problem" is that younger people who want to make the world better tend to move to places where stuff actually happens, instead of sitting around talking about it.
Re: American megachurches are thriving by poaching flocks
#54"The Righteous Gemstones" is pretty much mandatory entertainment watch if this subject has any interest. Superbly entertaining (at least 2 first seasons, less keen on the 3rd).
Season 3 is weirdly infatuated with a monster truck.
Re: American megachurches are thriving by poaching flocks
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
And? The comparison is on purpose. The idea of a shepherd and their flock has numerous references in the bible and is used as allegory, which pre-modern people would've understood.
Whether Biblical or modern, I find the metaphor particularly apt: to describe a group of people easily led, raised for exploitation and slaughter.
[deleted]
Re: American megachurches are thriving by poaching flocks
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
And? The comparison is on purpose. The idea of a shepherd and their flock has numerous references in the bible and is used as allegory, which pre-modern people would've understood.
Whether Biblical or modern, I find the metaphor particularly apt: to describe a group of people easily led, raised for exploitation and slaughter.
There’s always one of these edgelords lurking about. You must be fun at parties.
Re: American megachurches are thriving by poaching flocks
#57Curious if members of HN attend any of these megachurches. If so, what is the draw?
I'm of a smaller Baptist ilk. There is a reason that the Carpenter kept the effort small, and that may be lost on these mega-outfits, I surmise.
Re: American megachurches are thriving by poaching flocks
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's creepier. One of the parts of having a pastor is using that person as a spiritual counselor. It's THE core part of their job. If you belong to a megachurch, then unless you are a huge donor, your pastor will likely never even know your name, much less help you out with any issues you might have with faith or morality based issues.
I'm not religious but one of my coworkers goes to a megachurch a few miles from where I live. I looked up their web site and they have 14 different people listed as "pastor." It looks like it is divided up between a senior ministry team, adult and family ministers, care, college, music, sports, student ministries. Then there are about 30 elders and another 50 deacons. I just looked at the satellite photos and they ha…
Yes from what I've seen the ministries are split into families, teenagers, seniors, Spanish-speaking, missions, sports etc. Seems like that would have serious pros and cons.
Another underreported part of the value proposition is that single/divorced/widowed people can find partners/spouses via that church and its social events (and it gives some basic implicit level of background verification, more than dating apps).
This is likely gradually becoming more important in part as civic engagement and volunteering are reportedly decreasing in recent decades, esp. in the US. [I looked for studies but didn't find much.]
At the extreme cusp of megachurch/influencer, Hillsong Church NYC's (ex-)pastor Carl Lentz [0] befriended[/recruited/targeted/whatever verb] Justin Bieber (baptized him in an NBA player's bathtub) [1] and other celebrities [2]. The term "hypepriest" was coined [3]. "Marketing lessons from a Southern megachurch" [4] is an interesting read; the degree to which church preachers and Instagram influencers have things in common depends presumably on the type of church, which demographic it might be targeting and how narrowly, its KPI, the preachers' compensation incentives, social-media presence etc. Haven't seen much study of this, presumably because much of the data is not public. But as the concept of social capital is being redefined in the internet age, clearly there are long-term implications.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsong_Church
[1]: https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/10/1/17596502/justin-bie...
[2]: https://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/pictures/stars-who...
[3]: https://www.gq.com/story/hypepriests-pastors-who-dress-like-...
[4]: https://medium.com/@greenglassheart/marketing-lessons-from-a...
Re: American megachurches are thriving by poaching flocks
#59Consider checking out your local UU (Unitarian Universalist) church if one exists. They're one of the few positioned to poach from the huge flock of "nones" without any change in belief. UU is basically the church of be excellent to each other , yet whenever I go it's almost entirely old people. It's fun to chat and drink coffee with them, but I wonder where all the younger atheists/humanists are.
> It's fun to chat and drink coffee with them, but I wonder where all the younger atheists/humanists are. At home getting stoned and playing video games. … only half-joking.
Yeah, it's difficult to care about community when you can generate the perception of happiness at home with minimal effort.
Re: American megachurches are thriving by poaching flocks
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
> it's almost entirely old people Amen. That was my experience. > I wonder where all the younger atheists/humanists are They’ve turned to Freemasonry and the Elks. Ha! No, millennials don’t believe in community organizations. Too creepy.
Both the Freemasonry and the Elks require a belief in god to join, or at least heavily encourage it.
Masons require a belief in a higher power. Individual Masons may believe in God, but the institution is committed to a broader higher power.