Moral Ambition: Mobilization and Social Outreach in Evangelical Megachurches

Chapter 2: Awaking Sleeping Giants

chapter 2 Awaking Sleeping Giants 36 Whether you are a newcomer or seasoned churchgoer, one of the serious challenges of attending a worship service at a suburban megachurch on Sunday morning is finding a decent parking spot. A novice in every sense, I learned quickly that to get a good space in the sprawling parking lots of either Eternal Vine Church or Marble Valley Presbyterian—the two evangelical megachurches where I attended services on an alternating basis—I would need to set out early and beat the rush. For most commuting churchgoers in Knoxville, getting to church on time means waking up early, feeding and dressing the kids, and loading everyone in the car for a drive of anywhere from five to thirty minutes (or more) along the congested interstate. With no children of my own and only a twenty-minute drive to church, I still somehow managed to arrive late. I would race through alternate routes, a cup of hot coffee in one hand, steering wheel in the other, only to end up idling behind a caravan of SUVs, minivans, pickup trucks, and shiny sedans waiting to enter an unforgiving maze of parked cars glistening under the steamy Tennessee sun. Like all megachurches, Eternal Vine and Marble Valley Presbyterian hold multiple worship services to accommodate the size and growth of their congregations. At the time of my fieldwork, both congregations held two morning services—9:00 a.m. and 11:15 a.m.—in addition to early evening services usually catering to young adults (separate chapel services were held in the morning for children and teenagers). Awaking Sleeping Giants | 37 On most Sundays I attended a morning service at one megachurch, and then would either stay there and sit in on an adult Sunday school class or ministry meeting or drive ten minutes to the other megachurch in time for its second morning service. In sanctuaries big enough to hold close to two thousand people it was not hard to be inconspicuous if I wanted to be, which was only the case on days when I chose to sit near the back and take notes. More often, especially once I became a “regular” at church, I sat with friends and informants who would in turn introduce me to their friends and family. Some people enjoyed giving me useful tidbits of information during services. When I sat next to Phil Harkin at Marble Valley Presbyterian, he would whisper things like: “That’s Ron over there, with his wife Sue. He coordinates our Habitat for Humanity building teams. I’ll introduce you to him later.” After services we might all go to a restaurant for lunch, or meet up at someone’s home for barbecue and iced tea. Making contacts through other people on Sunday was crucial, especially in the beginning when it was difficult to come across adequate leads for my research simply by paying attention. I was eager to learn about outreach ministries and volunteer opportunities that were being organized, but they were almost as hard to come by as a good parking spot. This is apparently common among megachurches, which “rarely feature their social ministry involvements prominently in their advertisements and promotion. ... [M]inistries to the poor are not so visible or well known among church attendees” (Thumma and Travis 2007: 84). As I started to meet pastors and churchgoers who comprised the small minority of outreach coordinators and mobilizers at Eternal Vine and Marble Valley Presbyterian, I became aware that such ministries tended to be rather marginal and modest in scope compared to “in-house” ministries serving the needs of members. I also sensed the frustration of those I met, many of whom felt that the megachurches of Knoxville, including their own, failed to live up to their potential in terms of large-scale community impact. The prevailing sentiment among socially engaged pastors and churchgoers was that for all their wealth and prestige, the megachurches remained “sleeping giants” in need of awakening. Their sense of urgency had a decidedly revivalist ring to it, and it built on combined feelings of optimism and self-doubt with regard to the potential for evangelical megachurches to advance the work of evangelism and the cause of Christianization by methods that would be both culturally relevant and theologically coherent. 38 | Awaking Sleeping Giants Although the social outreach activities of the megachurches were not advertised prominently when I arrived—few...