When Mega Churchin' Fails

The aura of contemporary prosperity isn't a substitute for true charity

When Mega Churchin’ Fails
by Stephane Dunn | TheLoop21

Growing up, I lived in church – or so it seemed. Between a devoted Pentecostal grandmother and later a saved, sanctified Mama, there was no such thing as just Sunday church going. Since there was bible study, summer revival, summer bible camp, district meetings, pastor anniversaries, Easter and Christmas programs and just-because-the-spirit-told-the-pastor spontaneous shut-ins, there were many weeks when we went to church Sunday through Friday nights [the ones I hated the most].

My mom married into a church as my father, a self-avowed non-churchgoer, was the brother of the first lady. Everybody seemed to know everybody. In our church of about hundred [on say a good Easter Sunday] many of the members were either some distant cousin or great aunt of the Pastor’s or his wife’s nephew or such a long time member of the church, they remembered when the then middle-aged preacher was a slightly wayward teen.

Even if you weren’t kin to the preacher or his wife or married into the church family in some way, no one was a stranger for too long; this was also true in the larger, more bourgeoisified churches with anywhere from 300 to 1,000 members. The term ‘mega church’ wasn’t a term folks used commonly.

Of course, there were drawbacks to these somewhat small congregations. As a child, it was burdensome to have all-eyes-on you. If old Mother whomever saw you doing wrong or looking like you were thinking about it or you got too grown and sassy with Sister so and so, you might as well go on and tell on yourself because your mother or father or grandma would hear about it which meant you’d be feeling it at home after church.

Every church – whether it be Baptist, non-denominational or Pentecostal—was a potential breeding ground for busy bodies and gossipers. It never mattered how brave a teacher got to preach on it; folks were never shamed enough to stop talking ‘under folks clothes’ including and especially the preacher and first lady. Good business, bad business – the seventy-year-old Deacon’s gambling backsliding, the preacher’s son’s out of wedlock baby, some longtime member’s pregnant teen grandchild – it all became front pew news. And there were also those annoying cliques which were predicated on how well you were connected and to whom. You could be an insider but still outside the circle of the truly favored church elite.

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