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Megachurches in New England

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What they're talking about is Biblically derived self-esteem. Fortuitously for its cause, the new evangelical perspective focuses less on a punitive, vengeful God than on a loving one who wants His children to succeed. Churchgoers, by extension, are taught to view themselves through a similar lens. At Faith, Senior Pastor Frank Santora calls it "seeing yourself as God sees you." Santora can talk tirelessly about the theme of the New Testament: grace, which translates as God's favor, he says. According to Santora, God is the ultimate affirmer of human worth.

The fact that Santora and other evangelicals tend to define Christianity in terms of the New Testament and Jesus, whom they see as a merciful manifestation of God, has an important regional implication. In a place where the stringencies of Puritanism long held sway--early New Englanders were taught to be far more God-fearing than Jesus-loving--perhaps a kinder, gentler Christianity offers particular appeal. Puritanism set forth an unbridgable chasm between sinful humanity and a righteous deity. And that--if you listen week after week to the messages now preached at evangelical churches across New England--is no longer the case.

Grace Chapel, founded in 1948, sits on a back street in Lexington, not far from the Minuteman statue on the town green. As it grew into a megachurch through the 1980s and '90s, Grace was an object of considerable curiosity and, in some cases, outright suspicion: Was it a cult? A haven for right-wing intolerance? Over time that suspicion seems to have dissipated. So too have worries that Grace would draw from the town's existing congregations. In recent years, community groups have begun meeting at Grace, and one recent July a youth theater troupe gave its performances of Willy Wonka there, evidence of Grace's current place in the town and perhaps of the popular view of it as just another church.

But Grace isn't just another church. A recent 75,000-square-foot expansion doubled its size and added, among other things, a gym, a cafe, and a computerized child registration center. If a baby cries while being looked after in the child-care center, a pager flashes in the sanctuary, summoning his or her parents. More than 3,000 people attend four Sunday services, and the number swells to 5,000 on Christmas and Easter. Unlike those of its nearby Episcopal and Unitarian counterparts, the parking lots at Grace are full almost every day of the week.

On one Monday night, more than 100 people gathered for "Celebrate Recovery," Grace's local branch of a national program, which, according to materials given to newcomers, seeks to reach those who believe they're "being held back from experiencing God's best plans due to a past or current hurt, habit, or hangup." The evening began with a meal of deli-style sandwiches and salad. At one table, a boy told stories about his cat as his mother smiled at him and at the surrounding adults in whose attention he basked. At another table, a woman spoke in low tones about her sobriety. "It's day by day," she told a fellow attendee. "You know what I mean."

After dinner, the group gathered in another part of the room to sing. Some swayed and others stood stock-still as words appeared on a monitor: How wonderful, how marvelous, is my Savior's love for me ... Between songs, the music director addressed the group. "You'll notice that we sing about God's love an awful, awful lot," he said. "That's because a lot of us try to get love and can't from people. God is always there."